| Description | ' It is announced in 'The Times' of May 19 (p. 11) that
" The Provincial Court at Breslau on the previous day (May 18) declared invalid a marriage solemnized in 1927 between a German and a woman of Jewish origin...
In its judgement the Court stated that, according to present-day notions, race was a personal quality of peculiar significance. Character, nature, and outlook were very larely dependent on race and blood"
A month ago (April 24) I presided over a meeting of representative authorities at the Royal Anthropological Institute, at which it was unanimously agreed that, so much doubt existing as to the validity of such speculations on race and character, the council of the institute was urged to collaborate with the council of the Institute of Sociology in setting up a committee seriously to examine and state its conclusions regarding this claim. In view of the doubt as to the validity of what the Breslau Court calls "present-day notions", it is clearly the duty of the scientist to protest against the use of such conjectures to excuse arbitrary acts which cannot be defended by rational argument.' |