Race—Insanity—The influence of sex—The heredity of genius—Criminal and insane parentage and descent of genius—Age of parents—Conception.

Race.—We have seen that in Italy the Greek and the Etruscan racial elements combine with the temperate and mountainous climate to produce men of genius; the influence of race calling forth genius even where the climate is not happy. We cannot otherwise explain the genius produced at Modena, Mantua, and Lucca, which possess the Etruscan origin, although not the delicious climate, of Florence. The Jews, again, offer us an eloquent example.

I have elsewhere shown (Uomo Bianco e l’Uomo di Colore and Pensiero e Meteore) how, owing to the bloody selection of mediæval persecutions, and owing also to the influence of temperate climate, the Jews of Europe have risen above those of Africa and the East, and have often surpassed the Aryans. It is not only a difference in general culture, but we find more precocious and extended mental work applied to different sciences. It is certainly thus in music, the drama, satirical and humorous literature, journalism, and in various branches of science. This has been statistically proved by various writers, as by Jacobs in a very careful study on the ability of the Jews in Western Europe and of Jews in general.[247]

In 100,000 celebrities—

Europeans. Jews.
Actors 21 34
Agriculture 2 —
Antiquaries 23 26
Architects 6 6
Artists 40 34
Authors 316 223
Divines 130 105
Engineers 13 9
Engravers 3 —
Lawyers 44 40
Medicals 31 49
Merchants 12 43
Military 56 6
Miscellaneous 4 3
Metaphysics 2 18
Musicians 11 71
Natural Science 22 25
Naval 12 —
Philologists 13 123
Poets 20 36
Political Economy 20 26
Science 51 52
Sculptors 10 12
Sovereigns 21 —
Statesmen 125 83
Travellers 25 12

“The two lists are approximately equal in antiquaries, architects, artists, lawyers, natural science, political economy, science, sculptors. Jews seem to have superiority as actors, chess-players, doctors, merchants (chiefly financiers), in metaphysics, music, poetry, and philology.... Of course, Jews have no Darwin. It took England 180 years after Newton before she could produce a Darwin, and as Britishers are five times the number of Jews, even including those of Russia, it would take, on the same showing, 900 years before they produce another Spinoza, or, even supposing the double superiority to be true, 450 years would be needed.”

Jews have given to the world musicians like Meyerbeer, Halèvy, Gutzkow, Mendelssohn, Offenbach, Rubinstein, Joachim, Benedict, Moscheles, Cowen, Sullivan, Goldmark, Strauss; poets, novelists, humourists, &c., like Heine, Saphir, Camerini, Revere, Jung, Weill, Fortis, Gozlan, Moritz Hartmann, Auerbach, Börne, Ratisbonne, Kompert, Grace Aguilar, Franzos, Massarani, Lindau, Catulle Mendes; linguists like Ascoli, Benfey, Munk, Fiorentino, Luzzato, Oppert, Bernhardi, Friedland, Weil, Lazarus, Steinthal; physicians like Valentin, Hermann, Haidenhain, Schiff, Casper, Stilling, Gluge, Traube, Fraenkel, Kuhn, Cohnheim, Hirsch, Liebreich, Bernstein, Remak, Weigert, Meynert, Hitzig, Westphal, Mendel, Leidesdorf, Benedikt; philosophers like Spinoza, Maimon, Sommerhausen, Moses Mendelssohn; naturalists like Cohn; economists like Ricardo, Lassalle, Karl Marx; jurists and statesmen like Stahl, Gans, Beaconsfield, Crémieux. Even in sciences in which the Semite formerly showed no ability, such as mathematics and astronomy, we find such men as Goldschmidt, Beer, Sylvester, Kronecker, and Jacobi.

It must be observed that a very large proportion of these men of genius have been radically creative; revolutionary in politics, and in religion, and in science. Jews, indeed, initiated Nihilism and Socialism on the one hand, Mosaism and Christianity on the other. Commerce owes to them the bill of exchange, philosophy owes to them Positivism, literature the Neo-humourism.

Jacobs shows that this abundance of Jewish men of genius of the first order is allied with a deficiency in men of the second order of intellect. He explains the superiority by the higher level of education among the Jews, their devotion to family life, the almost complete absence of priests and dogmas, the facilities which the study of Hebrew offers for investigations in philosophy and for that kind of music which forms part of their religious ceremonies. It is difficult, however, to find a relationship between this rhythmical caterwauling and the sublime notes of Meyerbeer and Mendelssohn; and Jews possess more than enough of priests and dogmas. I would add that if the Jews have not yet produced men like Newton, Darwin, and Michelangelo, it is because they have not yet accomplished their ethnic evolution, as they show by the obstinacy with which they cling to their ancient beliefs.