Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 51.djvu/649

Rh call attention to it later in other portions of Europe, particularly where isolation prevails. The form of the nose, the proportions of the face, nay at times the expression, seem to be localized and strongly characteristic. It is easy to conceive of an artificial selection in an isolated society whereby choice should be exercised in accordance with certain standards of beauty which had become generally accepted in that locality. It is merely an illustration of what Giddings, in his Principles of Sociology, aptly terms a recognition of "consciousness of kind"; or as Dr. Beddoe puts it, of "fashion operating through conjugal selection." An example of the effect of selection of this kind in producing strongly individual types is offered by the Jews. They as a race vary greatly in the proportions of the head; and in color of eyes and hair to a lesser degree. Nevertheless, despite all variations in these characteristics the prominent facial features remain always the same. The first, being inconspicuous traits, are allowed to run their natural course; the latter are seized upon and accentuated through the operation of sexual preference for that which has become generally recognized either as beautiful or ethnically individual.

In the attempt to justify this interesting sociological explanation for the peculiarities of the Basques, causing them to differ



from their parent Mediterranean stock, several corroborative facts have come to light. Certain customs among the peasants seem to imply a recognition of their facial individuality. These all tend to accentuate the peculiarities which have now apparently become hereditary among them. The chin is almost invariably