er
than extreme, conditions. The albino male was considerably larger than
the pigmented male; nevertheless his young average distinctly smaller in
size. Note also the brighter expression of the pigmented young."]

There is, then, a suspicion that lead is a racial poison, but no
evidence as yet as to whether the effect is permanent or in the nature
of an induction.

This concludes the short list of substances for which there has been any
plausible case made out, as racial poisons. Gonorrhea, malaria, arsenic,
tobacco, and numerous other substances have been mentioned from time to
time, and even ardently contended by propagandists to be racial poisons,
but in the case of none of them, so far as we know, is there any
evidence to support the claim. And as has been shown, in the case of the
three chief so-called racial poisons, alcohol, syphilis and lead, the
evidence is not great. We are thus in a position to state that, from the
eugenists' point of view, the _origination_ of degeneracy, by some
direct action of the germ-plasm, is a contingency that hardly needs to
be reckoned with. Even in case the evidence were much stronger than it
is, the damage done may only be a physiological or chemical induction,
the effects of which will wear off in a few generations; rather than a
radical change in the hereditary constituents of the germ-plasm. The
germ-plasm is so carefully isolated and guarded that it is almost
impossible to injure it, except by treatment so severe as to kill it
altogether; and the degeneracy with which eugenists are called on to
deal is a degeneracy which is running along from generation to
generation and which, when once stopped by the cessation of
reproduction, is in little danger of being originated anew through some
racial poison.

Through these facts, the problem of race betterment is not only
immensely simplified, but it is clearly shown to be more a matter for
treatment by the biologist, acting through eugenics, than for the
optimistic improver of the environment.

There is another way in which it is widely believed that some such
result as a direct influence of the germ-plasm can be produced: that is
through the imaginary process known as maternal impression, prenatal
influence, etc. Belief in maternal impressions is no novelty. In the
book of Genesis[24] Jacob is described as making use of it to get the
better of his tricky father-in-law. Some animal breeders still profess
faith in it as a part of