Note 44 — II. THE SEXUAL EPOCH OF THE MENACME. (continued 2)

The statement is so often made that conception occurring when one or both parents are intoxicated is likely to be harmful to the offspring, that it seems expedient to point out that neither the author of this work, nor any other author known to me, has ever brought forward any rigorous scientific evidence in proof of the alleged fact. It is one of those crude generalizations whose superficial verisimilitude leads to their continued though unsupported reassertion. The fact that the notion of procreation by inebriated progenitors is repugnant to our æsthetic sensibilities has, of course, nothing whatever to do with the logical proof of the assertion that such an act is harmful to the fruit of conception.—Tr.