402 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



that each great European nationality has some strong points not 

 equally shared by the others ; and it is a trite observation that inter- 

 marriages between members of such nationalities tend to produce an 

 unusually high level of general intelligence. In Ireland, the mixed 

 French families, sprung from intermarriages with refugees, have long 

 been noticed in this respect ; at Norwich and throughout the eastern 

 counties, the mixed descendants of the Huguenots (such as the Mar- 

 tineaus and others) have been equally distinguished. Perhaps one 

 might even point out an exceptional amount of intellectual power in 

 the more mixed Celtic and Teutonic regions of Britain — the border- 

 lands of the two races — notably at Aberdeen and in Devonshire. But 

 the most remarkable and least dubious instance is that of the mixed 

 offspring of Jews and Christians. Here we start with a pure race of 

 unusual intellectual vigor and power, the Jews long thrown by circum- 

 stances into an environment which has brought out many of their 

 faculties in a very high degree. They are the oldest civilized race 

 now remaining on the earth ; they are artistic, musical, literary, ex- 

 ceptionally philosophic, and hereditarily cultivated. Even by marriage 

 among themselves they naturally produce a very large proportion of 

 remarkable men. But when they marry out with Christian women — 

 in other words, with women of the European race — the special Aryan 

 traits seem to blend with the Semitic in a very notable and powerful 

 mixture. I have not space to give illustrations, but the list that can 

 be compiled of distinguished persons of half- Jewish blood is something 

 simply extraordinary, especially when one remembers the compara- 

 tively small sum-total of such intermarriages. Indeed, the difficulty 

 would probably be to find a single person of mixed Jewish race who 

 was not at least above the average in intellect and in plasticity of 

 thought. 



Finally, it seems to me that unless we accept the view here con- 

 tended for, that all increments of brain-power are functionally pro- 

 duced, the whole history of human development ought to present the 

 appearance of a continuous chaos. Granted this principle, we can 

 understand why a Phidias appeared in Greece, a Raffaelle in Italy, a 

 Watt in Britain ; without it, we can not understand why they should 

 not all have appeared in Iceland or in New Guinea just as well. If 

 mere physical circumstances affecting germs and sperm-cells can pro- 

 may be due to reversion to an earlier and still more savage type of humanity. Without 

 expressing any opinion on the question of fact (a delicate one to decide), I fancy another 

 explanation fits more simply : namely, that as morals are a comparatively recent and 

 unstable acquisition even in the best and highest, they do not crop up in the half-breed ; 

 and the union of relatively high European intelligence with relatively low savage ethics 

 may easily produce what seems at least to be a very brutal and diabolical nature. Surely 

 there can be nothing worse in any savage than such abnormal products of our own civil- 

 ization as Peace the murderer, or as the man Thomasson who attempted to blow up an 

 Atlantic steamer by a piece of dynamite clock-work for the sake of obtaining the insur- 

 ance. 



