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How shall we solve this enigma of ethnic purity, and yet impurity, 

 of type ? In this very apparent contradiction lies the grain of comfort 

 for our sociological hypothesis. The Jew is radically mixed in the 

 line of racial descent; he is, on the other hand, the legitimate heir 

 to all Judaism as a matter of choice. It is for us a case of purely 

 artificial selection, operative as ever only in those physical traits 

 which appeal to the senses. It is precisely analogous to our example 

 of the Basques in France and Spain. What we have said of them will 

 apply with equal force here. Both Jews and Basques possessed in 

 a high degree a " consciousness of kind "; they were keenly sensible 

 of their social individuality. The Basques primarily owed theirs to 

 geographical isolation and a peculiar language; that of the Jews was 

 derived from the circumstances of social isolation, dependent upon 

 the dictates of religion. Another case in point occurs to us in this 

 connection. Chantre,* in a recent notable work, has shown the re- 

 markable uniformity in physical type among the Armenians. They 

 are so peculiar in head form that we in America recognize them at 

 once by their foreshortened and sugar-loaf skulls, almost devoid of 

 occiput. They too, like the Jews, have long been socially isolated in 

 their religion. Thus in all these cases, Basques, Armenians, and 

 Jews, we have a potent selective force at work. So far as in their 

 power lay, the individuality of all these people was encouraged and 

 perpetuated as one of their dearest possessions. It affected every de- 

 tail of their lives. Why should it not also react upon their ideal of 

 physical beauty? and why not influence their sexual preferences, as 

 well as to determine their choice in marriage? Its results became 

 thus accentuated through heredity. But all this would be accom- 

 plished, be it especially noted, only in so far as the physical traits 

 were consciously or unconsciously impressed upon them by the facts 

 of observation. There arises at once the difference between artificial 

 selection in the matter of the head form and that concerning the facial 

 features. One is an unsuspected possession of individuality, the 

 other is matter of common notice and, it may be, of report. What 

 Jew or Christian, till he became anthropologist, ever stopped to con- 

 sider the shape of his head, any more than the addition of a number 

 of cubits to his stature? Who has not, on the other hand, early 

 acquired a distinct concept of a Jewish face and of a distinctly Jew- 

 ish type? Could such a potent fact escape observation for a moment? 



We are confirmed in our belief in the potency of an artificial se- 

 lection, such as we have described, to perpetuate or to evolve a Jewish 

 facial type by reason of another observation. The women among 

 the Jews, as Jacobs f notes, in confirmation of our own belief, be- 



* Recherches anthropologiques dans l'Asie Occidentale (Archives du Museum d'histoire 

 naturelle, Lyons, vol. vi, 1895). f 1886 a, p. xxviii. 



