426 
Miscellanea 
Dr Salaman's conclusion (5) makes it a matter of indifference whether we accept the opinion (it 
is hardly more) of Ripley or of Weissenberg. We have nothing definite or tangible upon which 
to seize. The Jewish nose has a prominent place in the essay, but as to its value as a 
possible index of racial character Dr Salaman is perfectly agnostic. We are told of a face with 
" rounded features, long sloping jaw, fairly developed chin which is round and not square, a good 
sized forehead devoid of that angularity in the temples not uncommon among Teutonic peoples," 
but these highly complex anatomical peculiarities, each of which from its mere description 
seems to demand quantitative expression, do not constitute " Jewishness " but merely ac- 
company it. For Dr Salaman, in fact, the "Jew is a Jew because he looks like one." This, 
indeed, seems to be his most characteristic argument. He deals with, a character which does 
not admit even of qualitative expression. While it is necessarily a function of the various 
organs of the face, and therefore an allelomorph so highly compound as to be scarcely resoluble 
into its component parts, it does not admit of expression in terms of them. Now, if the facial 
features are each one and separately a Mendelian unit, is each unit in the Jewish face recessive 
to the corresponding unit in the Gentile face so that the whole Jewish face is recessive to the 
Gentile ? A blend would be produced even if some units were dominant over others in the 
general appreciation of Jewishness ; but if Dr Salaman's view be justified, then every Jewish 
unit must be recessive to every other Gentile unit; but since this has not been tested it is 
purely arbitrary to assume its truth. It is not easy to see why the shape of a Gentile nose 
should be dominant to the shape of a Jewish nose in precisely the same way as a Jewish chin 
should be recessive to a Gentile one. When we ask what "Jewishness" is, we are told that it is 
the quality of looking Jewish, and to the question of what it means to look Jewish Dr Salaman 
would doubtless reply that it is to possess the quality of Jewishness. So vicious a circle of 
reasoning seems, scientifically, almost ludicrous, and it can hardly have value from the stand- 
point of anthropology. Dr Salaman appears in some degree troubled by this. " In determining 
the nature of so complex a character," he writes*, "the personal equation of the observer must 
play an important part. I have in some cases found that observers not specially acquainted 
with the subject, although agreeing that a given individual of the first generation is of Gentile 
appearance have yet felt that there was somewhere lurking in the face an expression which 
suggested 'Jewishness,' and there is very little doubt that such an opinion may be well 
founded. I have myself come across a few cases where without doubt the recessive Jewish 
facial expression has come to the surface as the individual grew older." Stated in other words, 
the first sentence would seem to imply that individuals classed as dominant may in reality 
constitute a blend. This has some importance in view of the suggestion made above that not 
all the Jewish characters may be recessive to the Gentile, and, if this be once conceded, what 
becomes of the correlated inheritance which is necessary for the establishment of Mendelian 
theory 1 The second sentence indicates a very real absence of gametic purity. These facts as 
stated by Dr Salaman throw the gravest doubt on the value of the categories used. When a 
definition of the character investigated is lacking because, seemingly, it can only be "felt" by 
the observer ; when his observers are classifying as Gentile offspring with a tinge of Jewishness — 
surely nothing more than a Mendelian gloss for an intermediate ; when Dr Salaman observes the 
appearance of the supposed recessive with increase of age ; the nature of Gentile dominance is 
very far indeed from being so satisfactory as his table would seem to show. Professor Pearson 
tells me of a typical case of intermarriage where the Gentile relatives say the children are 
Jewish, the Jewish relatives Gentile, in appearance. Here we have the dominance of Jewish 
features when judged by a Gentile, of Gentile when judged by a Jew. Dr Salaman's observers, 
as he himself tacitly admits, do not feel that his categories are sufficiently precise. The 
personal equation plays, I think, an even more important part than Dr Salaman imagines. In 
Weissenberg's experiment the Jew and the Gentile differed in their estimate by 20 per cent, and 
to the Jew 30 per cent, and to the Gentile 50 per cent, did not seem Jewish, — a highly 
* Loc. cit. p. 282. 
