Heredity and National Character. 113 



in definite points, there is considerable difficulty. Here, however, 

 are a few. 



The Jews are usually to be distinguished by their black hair and 

 beards, their long eyelashes, thick, prominent, arched eyebrows, 

 their large, dark, bright eyes, their dark complexion, their strongly 

 aquiline noses. In the east there are fair or red Jews : or, as they 

 are called, German Jews. They seem to result from a crossing of 

 German or Sclavonic races with the original Jews. 1 There are, 

 also, black Jews settled in India from time immemorial, who 

 possess very many of the physical characters of the Hindus, 

 owing to the influence of the climate, of circumstances, and 

 perhaps of cross-breeding. Still, they have a remote resemblance 

 to the Jews of Europe. Nott and Gliddon, after having studied 

 the question profoundly, conclude that 'all Jews possess some 

 identical features.' 



According to the statistical tables of France, Algeria, and 

 Prussia, it would appear that this race is remarkably long-lived. 2 

 In the various countries of Europe they increase more rapidly 

 than the Christian populations. Thus, in Germany, twenty-five 

 per cent of Christians die before they are six months old ; twenty- 

 five per cent, of Jews before they are twenty-eight years and three 

 months ; fifty per cent of the Christian population die before they 

 are twenty-eight, while fifty per cent, of the Jews exceed fifty-three 

 years. 



As regards moral qualities, the Jewish race is presented in 

 history as possessed of very definite characters, viz. a pre- 

 dominance of sentiment and imagination ; and this it is that has 

 given that nature its aptitude for the creation of religion, poetry, 

 and music. We need not dwell upon the religious importance of 

 a nation from which have sprung Judaism and Christianity, and 

 which alone among the nations of antiquity rose to Monotheism. 

 Nor can their poetic eminence be called in question, though this 

 race has a poetry of its own passionate, convulsive, abrupt, and 

 full of imagery. Though among the Jews we find very few painters 

 and sculptors, their aptitude for music is remarkable : no other 



1 Bulletins de la Societf ( Anthropologie, tome ii. p. 389. 

 * Ibid. vol. i. p. 1 80. 



