274 Heredity and the Jew 



hopeless, and that the apparent absence of segregation on Mendelian 

 lines is due to the fact that the difference between black and 

 white is a matter not of one factor but probably of a series of 

 distinct colour factors. Thus if it be assumed that the colour of the 

 negro differed by four such positive characters from that of the white 

 and that each of these in an ascending order were dominant to the one 

 below, then the children belonging to the ¥., generation, that is, the 

 grandchildren of the original cross, would only show one white-skinned 

 individual in every 256; whilst if the number of intervening factors 

 instead of being four were six, then a purely white individual would be 

 expected to occur once only out of 4096 grandchildren. One feature 

 examined by Hurst(7) gave consistent and valuable results, viz. eye 

 colour. He clearly showed that eye colour might be of two kinds, that 

 in which both surfaces of the iris were pigmented, the other in wliich 

 only one surface was. The latter condition is recessive and gives 

 rise to the true blue eye of the anthropologist. Where the dominant 

 character is present the eyes are of various shades of brown or of 

 green. The independence of this character in segregation is of the 

 greatest importance when one considers how some anthropologists have 

 talked of a blue-eyed, fair-haired, long-headed race as if it were an 

 impregnable complex and not a synthetic accident. The further such 

 researches as Hurst's can be carried into the heredity of individual 

 features, the clearer will become our notions of racial types. The facts 

 I am about to describe in relation to the Jews will, I think, bring this 

 point out in a clearer light. 



The racial position of the Jew has engaged the attention of all 

 modern ethnologists. The problem is extremely difficult because, on 

 the one hand, we have the oft asserted and by no means easily disproved 

 statement of the Jews themselves that they are pure Semites, whilst 

 observers such as Ripley, von Luschan and otheis, point out that the 

 Jew of to-day has no uniform cranial characters, that on the whole he 

 is decidedly brachycephalic, whilst the typical Semite such as the 

 Bedawyn is essentially dolichocephalic. 



Judt(lO), whilst regarding the Jews as belonging to one type although 

 with variations, is assured that they cannot be designated Semites on 

 account of the prevalent brachycephaly. 



Renan concluded that religion was the one bond of the Jews, and 

 that there was no single but several Jewish types. Most authorities 

 are at least agreed that the Jews up to the time of the destruction 

 had freely intermarried with the surrounding people, and the Biblical 



