ng must not lose sight of the model for a single
moment. Nor does it do so, generally speaking, for one may say that
this being is, as it were, the soul of the model, being one with it
and conscious only of the work it has to perform. In many cases,
however, it receives certain impressions before birth from the
mother's thoughts: an influence capable either of forwarding or
hindering its work. The ancient Greeks were well acquainted with this
fact when they assisted Nature to create beautiful forms by placing in
the mother's room statues of rare plastic perfection, and removing
from her sight every suggestion of ugliness. More than this; certain
intense emotions of the pregnant woman are capable of momentarily
effacing the image of the model which the builder has to reproduce,
and replacing certain of its details with images arising from the
mother's imagination. If these images are sufficiently vivid, the
being follows them; and if they endure for a certain length of time
they are definitely incorporated in the building of the body. In this
fashion, many birth marks (_naevi materni_) are produced; strawberries
or other fruit, eagerly desired at times when they cannot be procured,
have appeared on the child's skin; divers objects that have left a
vivid impression on the imagination may have the same effect. The
clearness and perfection of the impression depend on the intensity and
continuance of the mental image; the part where it is to appear
depends on the sense impressions of the mother coinciding with the
desire which forms the image--for instance, a spot on the body touched
rather sharply at the moment. This has given rise to the idea that
the "longing" is impressed on that part of the body which the mother
is touching during her desire. When the image is particularly strong
and persistent considerable modifications of the body have been
obtained; in such cases, children are born with animal-like heads, and
treatises on teratology relate the case of a foetus born with the
head detached from the trunk, because the mother, after witnessing an
execution, had been horribly impressed by the sight of the separated
heads of the victims. Malebranche, in his _Recherche de la Verite_,
tells of a child that was born with broken limbs because his mother
had seen the torture of the wheel. In this case, the image must have
been of enormous vibratory power and of considerable persistence.[59]

A general or even a local arrest of