FOURTH CHAPTER: THE CHAOS
So viel ist wohl mit Wahrscheinlichkeit zu urteilen: dass die Vermischung der Stamme, welche nach und nach die Charaktere ausloscht, dem Menschengeschlecht, alles vorgeblichen Philanthropismus ungeachtet, nicht zutraglich sei.
-- IMMANUEL KANT.
SCIENTIFIC CONFUSION
THE remarks which I made in the introduction to the second division will suffice as a general preface to this chapter on the chaos of peoples in the dying Roman Empire; they explain to what time and what countries I refer in speaking of the "chaos of peoples." Here, as elsewhere, I presuppose historical knowledge, at least in general outline, and as I should not like to write a single line in this whole book which did not originate from the need of comprehending and of judging the nineteenth century better, I think I should use the subject before us especially to discuss and answer the important question: Is nation, is race a mere word? Is it the case, as the ethnographer Ratzel asserts, that the fusion of all mankind should be kept before us as our "aim and duty, hope and wish"? Or do we not rather deduce from the example of Hellas and Rome, on the one hand, and of the pseudo- Roman empire on the other, as well as from many other examples in history, that man can only attain his zenith within those limits in which sharply defined, individualistic national types are produced? Is the present condition of things in Europe with its many fully formed idioms, each with its own peculiar poetry and literature, each the expression of a definite, characteristic national soul -- is this state of things really a retrograde step in comparison with the time, when Latin and Greek, as a kind of twin Volapuk, formed a bond of union between all those Roman subjects who had no fatherland to call their own? Is community of blood nothing? Can community of memory and of faith be replaced by abstract ideals? Above all, is the question one to be settled by each as he pleases, is there no clearly distinguishable natural law, according to which we must fit our judgment? Do not the biological sciences teach us that in the whole animal and vegetable kingdoms pre-eminently noble races -- that is, races endowed with exceptional strength and vitality -- are produced only under definite conditions, which restrict the begetting of new individuals? Is it not possible, in view of all these human and non-human phenomena, to find a clear answer to the question, What is race? And shall we not be able, from the consciousness of what race is, to say at once what the absence of definite races must mean for history? When we look at those direct heirs of the great legacy, these questions force themselves upon us. Let us in the first place discuss races quite generally; then, and then only, shall we be able to discuss with advantage the conditions prevailing in this special case, their importance in the course of his tory, and consequently in the nineteenth century.
There is perhaps no question about which such absolute ignorance prevails among highly cultured, indeed learned, men, as tile question of the essence and the significance of the idea of "race." What are pure races? Whence do they come? Have they any historical importance? Is the idea to be taken in a broad or a narrow sense? Do we know anything on the subject or not? What is the relation of the ideas of race and of nation to one another? I confess that all I have ever read or heard on this subject has been disconnected and contradictory: some specialists among the natural investigators form an exception, but even they very rarely apply their clear and detailed knowledge to the human race. Not a year passes without our being assured at international congresses, by authoritative national economists, ministers, bishops, natural scientists, that there is no difference and no inequality between nations. Teutons, who emphasise the importance of race-relationship, Jews, who do not feel at ease among us and long to get back to their Asiatic home, are by none so slightingly and scornfully spoken of as by men of science. Professor Virchow, for instance, says [1] that the stirrings of consciousness of race among' us are only to be explained by the "loss of sound common sense": moreover, that it is " all a riddle to us, and no one knows what it really means in this age of equal rights." Nevertheless, this learned man closes his address with the expression of a desire for "beautiful self-dependent personalities." As if all history were not there to show us how personality and race are most closely connected. how the nature of the personality is determined by the nature of its race. and the power of the personality dependent upon certain conditions of its blood! And as if the scientific rearing of animals and plants did not afford us an extremely rich and reliable material, whereby we may become acquainted not only with the conditions but with the importance of "race"! Are the so-called (and rightly so-called) "noble" animal races, the draught-horses of Limousin, the American trotter, the Irish hunter, the absolutely reliable sporting dogs, produced by chance and promiscuity? Do we get them by giving the animals equality of rights, by throwing the same food to them and whipping them with the same whip? No, they are produced by artificial selection and strict maintenance of the purity of the race. Horses and especially dogs give us every chance of observing that the intellectual gifts go hand in hand with the physical; this is specially true of the moral qualities: a mongrel is frequently very clever, but never reliable; morally he is always a weed. Continual promiscuity between two ye-eminent animal races leads without exception to the destruction of the pre-eminent characteristics of both. [2] Why should the human race form an exception? A father of the Church might imagine that it does, but is it becoming in a renowned natural investigator to throw the weight of his great influence into the scale of mediaeval ignorance and superstition? Truly one could wish that these scientific authorities of ours, who are so utterly lacking in philosophy, had followed a course of logic under Thomas Aquinas; it could only be beneficial to them. In spite of the broad common foundation, the human races are, in reality, as different from one another in character, qualities. and above all, in the degree of their individual capacities, as greyhound, bulldog, poodle and Newfoundland dog. Inequality is a state towards which nature inclines in all spheres; nothing extraordinary is produced without "specialisation"; in the case of men, as of animals, it is this specialisation that produces noble races; history and ethnology reveal this secret to the dullest eye. Has not every genuine race its own glorious, incomparable physiognomy? How could Hellenic art have arisen without Hellenes? How quickly has the jealous hostility between the different cities of the small country of Greece given each part its sharply defined individuality within its own family type! How quickly this was blurred again, when Macedonians and Romans with their levelling hand swept over the land! And how everything which had given an everlasting significant to the word "Hellenic" gradually disappeared when from North, East and West new bands of unrelated peoples kept flocking to the country and mingled with genuine Hellenes! The equality, before which Professor Virchow bows the knee, was now there, all walls were razed to the ground, all boundaries became meaningless; the philosophy, too, with which Virchow in the same lecture breaks so keen a lance, was destroyed, and its place taken by the very soundest "common sense"; but the beautiful Hellenic personality, but for which all of us would to-day be merely more or less civilised barbarians, had disappeared, disappeared for ever. "Crossing obliterates characters."
If the men who should be the most competent to pronounce an opinion on the essence and significance of Race show such an incredible lack of judgment -- if in dealing with a subject where wide experience is necessary for sure perception, they bring to bear upon it nothing but hollow political phrases -- how can we wonder that the unlearned should talk nonsense even when their instinct points out the true path? For the subject has in these days aroused interest in widely various strata of society, and where the learned refuse to teach, the unlearned must shift for themselves. When in the fifties Count Gobineau published his brilliant work on the inequality of the races of mankind, it passed unnoticed: no one seemed to know what it all meant. Like poor Virchow men stood puzzled before a riddle. Now that the Century has come to an end things have changed: the more passionate, more impulsive element in the nations pays great and direct attention to this question. But in what a maze of contradiction, errors and delusions public opinion moves! Notice how Gobineau bases his account -- so astonishingly rich in intuitive ideas which have later been verified and in historical knowledge -- upon the dogmatic supposition that the world was peopled by Shem, Ham and Japhet. Such a gaping void in capacity of judgment in the author suffices, in spite of all his documentary support, to relegate his work to the hybrid class of scientific phantasmagorias. With this is connected Gobineau's further fantastic idea, that the originally" pure" noble races crossed with each other in the course of history, and with every crossing became irrevocably less pure and less noble. From this we must of necessity derive a hopelessly pessimistic view of the future of the human race. But this supposition rests upon total ignorance of the physiological importance of what we have to understand by "race." A noble race does not fall from Heaven, it becomes noble gradually, just like fruit-trees, and this gradual process can begin anew at any moment, as soon as accident of geography and history or a fixed plan (as in the case of the Jews) creates the conditions. We meet similar absurdities at every step. We have, for example, a powerful Anti-Semitic movement: are we to consider the Jews as identical with the rest of the Semites? Have not the Jews by their very development made themselves a peculiar, pure race profoundly different from the others? Is it certain that an important crossing did not precede the birth of this people? And what is an Aryan? We hear so many and so definite pronouncements on this head. We contrast the Aryan with the "Semite," by whom we ordinarily understand "the Jew" and nothing more, and that is at least a thoroughly concrete conception based upon experience. But what kind of man is the Aryan? What concrete conception does he correspond to? Only he who knows nothing of ethnography can give a definite answer to this question. As soon as we do not limit this expression to the Indo-Eranians who are doubtless interrelated, we get into the sphere of uncertain hypotheses. [3] The peoples whom we have learned to classify together as "Aryans" differ physically very much from each other; they reveal the most different structure of skull, also different colour of skin, eyes and hair; and even granted that there was once a common ancestral Indo-European race, what evidence can we offer against the daily increasing sum of facts which make it probable that other absolutely unrelated types have also been from time immemorial richly represented in our so-called Aryan nations of to-day, so that we can never apply the term "Aryan" to a whole people, but, at most, to single individuals? Relationship of language is no conclusive proof of community of blood: the theory of the immigration of the so-called Indo-Europeans from Asia, which rests upon very slight grounds, encounters the grave difficulty that investigators are finding more and more reason to believe that the population which we are accustomed to can Indo-European was settled in Europe from time immemorial; [4] for the opposite hypothesis of a colonisation of India from Europe there are not the slightest grounds ... in short, this question is what miners call "swimming land"; he who knows the danger sets foot on it as little as possible. The more we study the specialists, the less certain we become. It was originally the philologists who established the collective idea "Aryans." Then came the anatomical anthropologists; the inadmissibility of conclusions drawn from mere philology was demonstrated, and now skull-measuring began; craniometry became a profession, and it did provide a mass of extremely interesting material; lately, however, the same fate is overtaking this. so-called "somatic anthropology" that formerly overtook philology; ethnographers have begun to travel and to make scientifically systematic observations from living man; and in this way have been able to prove that the measuring of bones by no means deserves the importance that was wont to be attached to it; one of the greatest of Virchow's pupils has become convinced that the idea of solving problems of ethnology by the measurement of skulls is fruitless. [5] All these advances have been made in the second half of the nineteenth century; who knows what will be taught about "Aryans" [6] in the year 1950? At present, at any rate, the layman can say nothing on the subject. If he turns up one of the well-known authorities, he will be told that the Aryans "are an invention of the study and not a primeval people," [7] if he seeks information from another, he receives the answer that the common characteristics of the Indo-Europeans, from the Atlantic Ocean to India, suffice to put the actual blood-relationship beyond all doubt. [8]
I hope I have clearly illustrated in these two paragraphs the great confusion which is prevalent among us to-day in regard to the idea "race." This confusion is not necessary, that is, with practical, active men who belong to life as we do. And it is unnecessary for this reason, that we, in order to interpret the lessons of history and to comprehend our present age in connection therewith, do not in any way need to seek for hidden origins and causes. In the former division I have already quoted the words of Goethe, "Animated inquiry into cause does great harm." What is clear to every eye suffices, if not for science, at least for life. Science must, of course, ever wander on its thorny but fascinating path; it is like a mountain climber, who every moment imagines that he will reach the highest peak, but soon discovers behind it a higher one still. But life is only indirectly interested in these changing hypotheses. One of the most fatal errors of our time is that which impels us to give too great weight in our judgments to the so-called "results" of science. Knowledge can certainly have an illuminating effect; but it is not always so, and especially for this reason. that knowledge always stands upon tottering feet. For how can intelligent men doubt but that much which we think we know to-day will be laughed at as crass ignorance, one hundred, two hundred, five hundred years hence? Many facts may, indeed, be looked upon to-day as finally established; but new knowledge places these same facts in quite a new light, unites them to figures never thought of before, or changes their perspective; to regulate our judgments by the contemporary state of science may be compared to an artist's viewing the world through a transparent, ever-changing kaleidoscope, instead of with the naked eye. Pure science (in contrast to industrial science) is a noble plaything; its great intellectual and moral worth rests in no small degree upon the fact that it is not "useful"; in this respect it is quite analogous to art, it signifies the application of thought to the outward world; and since nature is inexhaustibly rich, she thereby ever brings new material to the mind, enriches its inventory of conceptions and gives the imagination a new dream-world to replace the gradually fading old one. [9] Life, on the other hand, purely as such, is something different from systematic knowledge, something much more stable, more firmly founded, more comprehensive; it is in fact the essence of all reality, whereas even the most precise science represents the thinned, generalised, no longer direct reality. Here I understand by "life" what is otherwise also called "nature," as when, for instance, modern medicine teaches us that nature encourages by means of fever the change of matter and defends man against the illness which has seized him. Nature is in fact what we call "automatic," its roots go very much deeper than knowledge will ever be able to follow. And so it is my conviction that we -- who as thinking, well-informed, boldly dreaming and investigating beings are certainly just such integral parts of nature as all other beings and things, and as our own bodies -- may entrust ourselves to this nature -- to this "life" -- with great confidence. Though science leaves us in the lurch at many points, though she, fickle as a modern parliamentarian, laughs to-day at what she yesterday taught as everlasting truth, let this not lead us astray; what we require for life, we shall certainly learn. On the whole science is a splendid but somewhat dangerous friend; she is a great juggler and easily leads the mind astray into wild sentimentality; science and art are like the steeds attached to Plato's car of the soul; "sound common sense" (whose loss Professor Virchow lamented) proves its worth not least of all in pulling the reins tight and not permitting these noble animals to bolt with its natural, sound judgment. The very fact that we are living beings gives us an infinitely rich and unfailing capacity of hitting upon the right thing, even without learning, wherever it is necessary. Whoever simply and with open mind questions nature -- the "mother" as the old myths called her -- can be sure of being answered, as a mother answers her son, not always in blameless logic, but correctly in the main, intelligibly and with a sure instinct for the best interests of the son. So is it, too, in regard to the question of the significance of race: one of the most vital, perhaps the most vital, questions that can confront man.
IMPORTANCE OF RACE
Nothing is so convincing as the consciousness of the possession of Race. The man who belongs to a distinct, pure race, never loses the sense of it. The guardian angel of his lineage is ever at his side, supporting him where he loses his foothold, warning him like the Socratic Daemon where he is in danger of going astray, compelling obedience, and forcing him to undertakings which, deeming them impossible, he would never have dared to attempt. Weak and erring like all that is human, a man of this stamp recognises himself, as others recognise him, by the sureness of his character, and by the fact that his actions are marked by a certain simple and peculiar greatness, which finds its explanation in his distinctly typical and super-personal qualities. Race lifts a man above himself: it endows him with extraordinary -- I might almost say supernatural -- powers. so entirely does it distinguish him from the individual who springs from the chaotic jumble of peoples drawn from all parts of the world: and should this man of pure origin be perchance gifted above his fellows, then the fact of Race strengthens and elevates him on every hand, and he becomes a genius towering over the rest of mankind, not because he has been thrown upon the earth like a flaming meteor by a freak of nature, but because he soars heavenward like some strong and stately tree, nourished by thousands and thousands of roots -- no solitary individual, but the living sum of untold souls striving for the same goal. He who has eyes to see at once detects Race in animals. It shows itself in the whole habit of the beast, and proclaims itself in a hundred peculiarities which defy analysis: nay more, it proves itself by achievements, for its possession invariably leads to something excessive and out of the common -- even to that which is exaggerated and not free from bias. Goethe's dictum, "only that which is extravagant (uberschwanglich) makes greatness," is well known. [10] That is the very quality which a thoroughbred race reared from superior materials bestows upon its individual descendants -- something "extravagant" -- and, indeed, what we learn from every racehorse, every thoroughbred fox-terrier, every Cochin China fowl, is the very lesson which the history of mankind so eloquently teaches us! Is not the Greek in the fulness of his glory an unparalleled example of this "extravagance"? And do we not see this "extravagance" first make its appearance when immigration from the North has ceased, and the various strong breeds of men, isolated on the peninsula once for all, begin to fuse into a new race, brighter and more brilliant, where, as m Athens, the racial blood flows from many sources -- simpler and more resisting where, as in Lacedaemon, even this mixture of blood had been barred out. Is the race not as it were extinguished, as soon as fate wrests the land from its proud exclusiveness and incorporates it in a greater whole? [11] Does not Rome teach us the same lesson? Has not in this case also a special mixture of blood produced an absolutely new race, [12] similar in qualities and capacities to no later one, endowed with exuberant power? And does not victory in this case effect what disaster did in that, but only much more quickly? Like a cataract the stream of strange blood overflooded the almost depopulated Rome and at once the Romans 'ceased to be. Would one small tribe from among all the Semites have become a world-embracing power had it not made "purity of race" its inflexible fundamental law? In days when so much nonsense is talked concerning this question, let Disraeli teach us that the whole significance of Judaism lies in its purity of race. that this alone gives it power and duration, and just as it has outlived the people of antiquity, so, thanks to its knowledge of this law of nature, will It outlive the constantly mingling races of to-day. [13]
What is the use of detailed scientific investigations as to whether there are distinguishable races? whether race has a worth? how this is possible? and so on. We turn the tables and say: it is evident that there are such races: it is a fact of direct experience that the quality of the race is of vital importance; your province is only to find out the how and the wherefore, not to deny the facts themselves in order to indulge your ignorance. One of the greatest ethnologists of the present day, Adolf Bastian, testifies that, "what we see in history is not a transformation, a passing of one race into another, but entirely new and perfect creations, which the ever-youthful productivity of nature sends forth from the invisible realm of Hades." [14] Whoever travels the short distance between Calais and Dover, feels almost as if he had reached a different planet, so great is the difference between the English and French, despite their many points of relationship. The observer can also see from this instance the value of purer "inbreeding." England is practically cut off by its insular position: the last (not very extensive) invasion took place 800 years ago; since then only a few thousands from the Netherlands, and later a few thousand Huguenots have crossed over (all of the same origin), and thus has been reared that race which at the present moment is unquestionably the strongest in Europe. [15]
Direct experience, however, offers us a series of quite different observations on race, all of which may gradually contribute to the extension of our knowledge as well as to its definiteness. In contrast to the new, growing, Anglo-Saxon race, look, for instance, at the Sephardim, the so-called "Spanish Jews"; here we find how a genuine race can by purity keep itself noble for centuries and tens of centuries, but at the same time how very necessary it is to distinguish between the nobly reared portions of a nation and the rest. In England, Holland and Italy there are still genuine Sephardim but very few, since they can scarcely any longer avoid crossing with the Ashkenazim (the so-called "German Jews"). Thus, for example, the Montefiores of the present generation have all without exception married German Jewesses. But every one who has travelled in the East of Europe. where the genuine Sephardim still as far as possible avoid all intercourse with German Jews, for whom they have an almost comical repugnance, will agree with me when I say that it is only when one sees these men and has intercourse with them that one begins to comprehend the significance of Judaism in the history of the word. This is nobility in the fullest sense of the word, genuine nobility of race! Beautiful figures, noble heads, dignity in speech and bearing. The type is Semitic in the same sense as that of certain noble Syrians and Arabs. That out of the midst of such people Prophets and Psalmists could arise -- that I understood at the first glance, which I honestly confess that I had never succeeded in doing when I gazed, however carefully, on the many hundred young Jews -- "Bochers " -- of the Friedrichstrasse in Berlin. When we study the Sacred Books of the Jews we see further that the conversion of this monopolytheistic people to the ever sublime (though according to our Ideas mechanical and materialistic) conception of a true cosmic monotheism was not the work of the community, but of a mere fraction of the people; indeed this minority had to wage a continuous warfare against the majority, and was compelled to enforce the acceptance of its more exalted view of life by means of the highest Power to which man is heir, the might of personality. As for the rest of the people, unless the Prophets were guilty of gross exaggeration, they convey the impression of a singularly vulgar crowd, devoid of every higher aim, the rich hard and unbelieving, the poor fickle and ever possessed by the longing to throw themselves into the arms of the wretchedest and filthiest idolatry. The course of Jewish history has provided for a peculiar artificial selection of the morally higher section: by banishments, by continual withdrawals to the Diaspora -- a result of the poverty and oppressed condition of the land -- only the most faithful (of the better classes) remained behind, and these abhorred every marriage contract -- even with Jews! -- in which both parties could not show an absolutely pure descent from one of the tribes of Israel and prove their strict orthodoxy beyond all doubt. [16] There remained then no great choice; for the nearest neighbours, the Samaritans, were heterodox, and in the remoter parts of the land, except in the case of the Levites who kept apart, the population was to a large extent much mixed. In this way race was here produced. And when at last the final dispersion of the Jews came, all or almost all of these sole genuine Jews were taken to Spain. The shrewd Romans in fact knew well how to draw distinctions, and so they removed these dangerous fanatics, these proud men, whose very glance made the masses obey, from their Eastern home to the farthest West, [17] while, on the other hand, they did not disturb the Jewish people outside of the narrower Judea more than the Jews of the Diaspora. [18] -- Here, again, we have a most interesting object-lesson on the origin and worth of "race"! For of all the men whom we are wont to characterise as Jews, relatively few are descended from these great genuine Hebrews, they are rather the descendants of the Jews of the Diaspora, Jews who did not take part in the last great struggles; who, indeed, to some extent did not even live through the Maccabean age; these and the poor country people who were left behind in Palestine, and who later in Christian ages were banished or fled, are the ancestors of "our Jews" of to-day. Now whoever wishes to see with his own eyes what noble race is, and what it is not, should send for the poorest of the Sephardim from Salonici or Sarajevo (great wealth is very rare among them, for they are men of stainless honour) and put him side by side with any Ashkenazim financier; then will he perceive the difference between the nobility which race bestows and that conferred by a monarch. [19]
THE FIVE CARDINAL LAWS
It would be easy to multiply examples. But I think that we now have all the material that is necessary for a systematic analysis of our knowledge regarding race, from which we may then derive the cardinal principles of a conscious and appropriate judgment. We are not reasoning from hypothetical conditions in the remote past to possible results, but arguing from sure facts back to their direct causes. The inequality of gifts even in what are manifestly related races is evident; it is, moreover, equally evident to everyone who observes more closely that here and there, for a shorter or a longer time, one tribe does not only distinguish itself from the others, but is easily pre-eminent among them because there is something beyond the common in its gifts and capabilities. That this is due to racial breeding I have tried to illustrate graphically by the preceding examples. The results deducible from these examples (and they can be multiplied to any extent) enable us to affirm that the origin of such noble races is dependent upon five natural laws.
(1) The first and fundamental condition is undoubtedly the presence of excellent material. Where there is nothing, the king has no rights. But if I am asked, Whence comes this material? I must answer, I know not, I am as ignorant in this matter as if I were the greatest of all scholars and I refer the questioner to the words of the great world-seer of the nineteenth century, Goethe, "What no longer originates, we cannot conceive as originating. What has originated we do not comprehend." As far back as our glance can reach, we see human beings, we see that they differ essentially in their gifts and that some show more vigorous powers of growth than others. Only one thing can be asserted without leaving the basis of historical observation: a high state of excellence is only attained gradually and under particular circumstances, it is only forced activity that can bring it about; under other circumstances it may completely degenerate. The struggle which means destruction for the fundamentally weak race steels the strong; the same struggle, moreover, by eliminating the weaker elements, tends still further to strengthen the strong. Around the childhood of great races, as we observe, even in the case of the metaphysical Indians, the storm of war always rages.
(2) But the presence of excellent human material is not enough to give birth to the "extravagant"; such races as the Greeks, the Romans, the Franks, the Swabians, the Italians and Spaniards in the period of their splendour, the Moors, the English, such abnormal phenomena as the Aryan Indians and the Jews only spring from continued inbreeding. They arise and they pass away before our eyes. Inbreeding means the producing of descendants exclusively in the circle of the related tribesmen, with the avoidance of all foreign mixture of blood. Of this I have already given striking examples.
(3) But inbreeding pur et simple does not suffice: along with it there must be selection, or, as the specialists say, "artificial selection." We understand this law best when we study the principles of artificial breeding in the animal and vegetable worlds; I should recommend every one to do so, for there are few things which so enrich our conceptions of the plastic possibilities of life. [20] When one has come to understand what miracles are performed by selection, how a racehorse or a Dachshund or a choice chrysanthemum is gradually produced by the careful elimination of everything that is of indifferent quality, one will recognise that the same phenomenon is found in the human race, although of course it can never be seen with the same clearness and definiteness as in the other spheres. I have already advanced the example of the Jews; the exposure of weak infants is another point and was in any case one of the most beneficial laws of the Greeks, Romans and Teutonic peoples; hard times, which only the strong man and the hardy woman can survive, have a similar effect. [21]
(4) There is another fundamental law hitherto little heeded, which seems to me quite clear from history, just as it is a fact of experience in the breeding of animals: the origin of extraordinary races is, without exception, preceded by a mixture of blood. As that acute thinker, Emerson, says: "we are piqued with pure descent, but nature loves inoculation." Of the Aryan Indians of course we can say nothing as regards this, their previous history being hidden in the misty distance of time; on the other hand, with regard to the Jews, Hellenes and Romans the facts are perfectly clear, and they are no less so in regard to all the nations of Europe which have distinguished themselves by their national achievements and by the production of a great number of individuals of "extravagant" endowments. With regard to the Jews I refer the reader to the following chapter, as regards the Hellenes, Romans and English I have often pointed to this fact; [22] nevertheless, I would urge the reader not to grudge the labour of carefully reading in Curtius and Mommsen those chapters at the beginning which, on account of the many names and the confusion of detail, are usually rather glanced through than studied. There has never been so thorough and successful a mixture as in Greece: with the old common stock as basis there have gradually sprung up in the valleys, separated by mountains or seas, characteristically different tribes, composed here of huntsmen, there of peaceful farmers, in other parts of seafarers, &c.; among these differentiated elements we find a mixing and crossing, so fine that a human brain selecting artificially could not have reasoned the matter out more perfectly. In the first place we have migrations from East to West, later from West to East over the AEgean Sea; in the meantime, however, the tribes of the extreme North (in the first place the Dorians) advanced to the extreme South, forcing many of the noblest who would not submit to bondage from the South to that North from which they themselves had just come, or over the sea to the islands and the Hellenic coast of Asia. But everyone of these shiftings meant mixture of blood. Thus, for example, the Dorians did not all move to the Peloponnese, portions of them remained at every stopping-place in their slow wanderings and there fused with the former population. Indeed, these same original Dorians, whose special unity is such an apparent characteristic, knew in the old times that they were composed of three different stems, one of which moreover was called "Pamphyle," that is, "the stem of people of various descent." The most exuberant talent showed itself where the crossing had been happiest -- in New Ionia and in Attica. In New Ionia "Greeks came to Greeks, Ionians returned to their old home, but they came so transformed that from the new union of what was originally related, a thoroughly national development, much improved, rich, and in its results absolutely new, began in the old Ionian land." But most instructive is the history of the development of the Attic and particularly of the Athenian people. In Attica (just as in Arcadia, but nowhere else) the original Pelasgic population remained; it "was never driven out by the power of the stranger." But the coastland that belonged to the Archipelago invited immigration; and this came from every side; and while the alien Phoenicians only founded commercial stations on the neighbouring islands, the related Greeks pressed on into the interior from this side and that side of the sea, and gradually mingled with the former inhabitants. Now came the time of the already mentioned Dorian migrations and the great and lasting changes; Attica alone was spared; and thither fled many from all directions, from Boeotia, Achaea, Messenia, Argos and Egina, &c.; but these new immigrants did not represent whole populations; in the great majority of cases they were chosen men, men of illustrious, often of royal birth. By their influx the one small land became exceptionally rich in genuine, pure nobility. Then and then only, that is, after a varied crossing, arose that Athens to which humanity owes a greater debt than could ever be reckoned up. [23] -- The least reflection will show that the same law holds good in the case of Germans, French, Italians and Spaniards. The individual Teutonic tribes, for example, are like purely brutal forces of nature, till they begin to mingle with one another; consider how Burgundy, which is rich in great men, owes its peculiar population to a thorough crossing of the Teutonic and the Romance elements, and develops its characteristic individuality by long-continued political isolation; [24] the Franks grow to their full strength and give the world a new type of humanity where they mingle with the Teutonic tribes who preceded them and with Gallo- Romans, or where they, as in Franconia, form the exact point of union of the most diverse German and Slavonic elements; Swabia, the home of Mozart and Schiller, is inhabited by a half-Celtic race; Saxony, which has given Germany so many of its greatest men, contains a population quickened almost throughout by a mixture of Slavonic blood; and has not Europe seen within the last three centuries how a nation of recent origin -- Prussia -- in which the mixture of blood was still more thorough, has raised itself by its pre-eminent power to become the leader of the whole German Empire? -- It cannot of course be my task to give a detailed proof of what is here simply pointed out; but as I am advocating especially the great importance of purely-bred races, I desire particularly to emphasise the necessity, or at least the advantage, of mixture of blood and that not merely to meet the objection of one-sidedness and bias a priori, but because it is my conviction that the advocates of this theory have injured it very much by disregarding the important law of crossing. They get then to the mystical conception of a race pure in itself, which is an airy abstraction that retards instead of furthering. Neither history nor experimental biology has anything to say for such a view. The race of English thoroughbreds has been produced by the crossing of Arabian stallions with ordinary, but of course specially chosen, English mares, followed by inbreeding, yet in such a way that later crossing between varieties not far removed, or even with Arabians, is advisable from time to time; one of the noblest creatures that nature possesses, the so-called "genuine" Newfoundland dog, originated from the crossing of the Eskimo dog and a French hound; in consequence of the isolated position of Newfoundland, it became by constant inbreeding fixed and "pure," it was then brought to Europe by fanciers and raised to the highest perfection by artificial selection. -- Many of my readers may be amused at my constant references to the breeding of animals. But it is certain that the laws of life are great simple laws, embracing and moulding everything that lives; we have no reason to look upon the human race as an exception; and as we are unfortunately not in a position to make experiments in this matter with human beings, we must seek counsel from the experiments made with plants and animals -- But I cannot close my discussion of the fourth law without emphasising another side of this law of crossing; continued inbreeding within a narrow circle, what one might call "close breeding," leads in time to degeneration and particularly to sterility. Countless experiences in animal breeding prove that. Sometimes in such a case a single crossing, applied, for example, only to single members of a pack of hounds, will suffice to strengthen the weakened race and restore its productivity. In the case of men the at traction of Passion provides sufficiently for this quickening, so that it is only in the highest circles of the nobility and in some royal houses [25] that we observe increasing mental and physical degeneration in consequence of "close breeding." [26]
The slightest increase of remoteness in the degree of relationship of those marrying (even within the strict limits of the same type) suffices to give all the great advantages of inbreeding and to prevent its disadvantages. Surely it is manifest that here we have the revelation of a mysterious Law of Life, a Law of Life so urgent that in the vegetable kingdom -- where fructification within one and the same blossom seems at the first glance the natural and unavoidable thing -- there are in most cases the most complicated arrangements to hinder this and at the same time to see that the pollen, when not borne by the wind, is carried by insects from the one individual flower to the other. [27] When we perceive what is so evidently a fundamental law of nature, we are led to suppose that it is not by mere chance that pre-eminent races have sprung from an original fusing of different stems, such as we have observed in history; the historical facts rather provide still further proof for the view that mixture of blood supplies particularly favourable physiological conditions for the origin of noble races. [28]
(5) A fifth law must also be mentioned, although it is restrictive and explanatory rather than contributive of any new element to the question of race. Only quite definite, limited mixtures of blood contribute towards the ennoblement of a race, or, it may be, the origin of a new one. Here again the clearest and least ambiguous examples are furnished by animal breeding. The mixture of blood must be strictly limited as regards time, and it must, in addition, be appropriate; not all and any crossings, but only definite ones can form the basis of ennoblement. By time-limitation I mean that the influx of new blood must take place as quickly as possible and then cease; continual crossing ruins the strongest race. To take an extreme example, the most famous pack of greyhounds in England was crossed once only with bulldogs, whereby it gained in courage and endurance, but further experiments prove that when such a crossing is continued, the characters of both races disappear and quite characterless mongrels remain behind. [29] Crossing obliterates characters. The limitation to definitely appropriate crossings means that only certain crossings, not all, ennoble. There are crossings which, far from having an ennobling influence, ruin both races, and moreover, it frequently happens that the definite, valuable characters of two different types cannot fuse at all; in the latter case some of the descendants take after the one parent, others after the other, but naturally with mingled characteristics, or again, genuine real mongrels may appear, creatures whose bodies give the impression of being screwed together from parts that do not fit, and whose intellectual qualities correspond exactly to the physical. [30] Here too it should be remarked that the union of mongrel with mongrel brings about with startling rapidity the total destruction of all and every pre-eminent quality of race. It is therefore an entirely mistaken idea that mixture of blood between different stems invariably ennobles the race, and adds new qualities to the old. It does so only with the strictest limitations and under rare and definite conditions; as a rule mixture of blood leads to degeneration. One thing is perfectly clear: that the crossing of two very different types contributes to the formation of a noble race only when it takes place very seldom and is followed by strict inbreeding (as in the case of the English thoroughbred and the Newfoundland dog); in all other cases crossing is a success only when it takes place between those closely related, i.e., between those that belong to the same fundamental type. -- Here too no one who knows the detailed results of animal breeding can doubt that the history of mankind before us and around us obeys the same law. Naturally, it does not appear with the same clearness in the one case as in the other; we are not in a position to shut in a number of human beings and make experiments with them for several generations; moreover, while the horse excels in swiftness, the dog in remarkable and plastic flexibility of body, man excels in mind, here all his vigour is concentrated, here too, therefore, is concentrated all his variability, and it is just these differences in character and intelligence that are not visible to the eye. [31] But history has carried out experiments on a large scale, and everyone whose eye is not blinded by details, but has learned to survey great complexes, everyone who studies the soul-life of nations, will discover any amount of proofs of the law here mentioned. While, for example, the "extravagantly" gifted Attics and the uniquely shrewd and strong Roman race are produced by the fusion of several stems, they are nevertheless nearly related and noble, pure stems, and these elements are then, by the formation of States, isolated for centuries, so that they have time to amalgamate into a new solid unity; when, on the other hand, these States are thrown open to every stranger, the race is ruined, in Athens slowly, because owing to the political situation there was not much to get there, and the mixing in consequence only took place gradually and then for the most part with Indo-European peoples, [32] in Rome with frightful rapidity, after Marius and Sulla had, by murdering the flower of the genuine Roman youth, dammed the source of noble blood and at the same time, by the freeing of slaves, brought into the nation perfect floods of African and Asiatic blood, thus transforming Rome into the cloaca gentium, the trysting-place of all the mongrels of the world. [33] We observe the same on all sides. We see the English race arising out of a mutual fusion of separated but closely related Teutonic tribes; the Norman invasion provides in this case the last brilliant touch; on the other hand, geographical and historical conditions have so wrought that the somewhat more distantly related Celts remained by themselves, and even to-day only gradually mingle with the ruling race. How manifestly stimulating and refreshing, even to the present day, is the influence of the immigration of French Huguenots into Berlin! They were alien enough to enrich the life there with new elements and related enough to produce with their Prussian hosts not "mongrels that seem screwed together" but men of strong character and rare gifts. To see the opposite, we need only look over to South America. Where is there a more pitiful sight than that of the mestizo States there? The so-called savages of Central Australia lead a much more harmonious, dignified and, let us say, more" holy" life than these unhappy Peruvians, Paraguayans, &c., mongrels from two and often more than two incongruous races, from two cultures with nothing in common, from two stages of development, too different in age and form to be able to form a marriage union -- children of an unnatural incest. Anyone who earnestly desires to know what race signifies can learn much from the example of these States; let him but consult the statistics, he will find the most different relations between the pure European or pure Indian population and the half-caste, and he will see that relative degeneration goes exactly hand in hand with the mixture of blood. I take the two extreme examples, Chile and Peru. In Chile, the only one of these States [34] that can make a modest claim to true culture and that can also point to comparatively well- ordered political conditions, about 30 per cent. of the inhabitants are still of pure Spanish origin, and this third is sufficient to check moral disintegration. [35] On the other hand, in Peru, which, as is well known, gave the first example to the other republics of a total moral and material bankruptcy, there are almost no Europeans of pure race left; with the exception of the still uncivilised Indians in the interior the whole population consists of Cholos, Musties, Fusties, Tercerones, Quarterones, &c., crossings between Indians and Spaniards, between Indians and Negroes, Spaniards and Negroes, further between the different races and those mestizos or crosses of the mestizo species among each other; in recent years many thousands of Chinese have been added ... here we see the promiscuity longed for by Ratzel and Virchow in progress, and we observe what the result is! Of course it is an extreme example, but all the more instructive. If the enormous force of surrounding civilisation did not artificially support such a State on all sides, if by any chance it were isolated and left to itself, it would in a short time fall a prey to total barbarism -- not human, but bestial barbarism. All these States are moving towards a similar fate. [36] -- Here too I leave it to the reader to think over the matter and to collect evidence with regard to this fifth law, which shows us that every crossing is a dangerous matter and can only help to ennoble the race when definite conditions are observed, as also that many possible crossings are absolutely detrimental and destructive; once the eyes of the reader are opened, he will find everywhere both in the past and in the present proofs of this law as well as of the other four. [37]
These then are the five principles which seem to me to be fundamental: the quality of the material. inbreeding, artificial selection, the necessity of crossings, the necessity of strictly limiting these crossings both in respect of choice and of time. From these principles we further deduce the conclusion that the origin of a very noble human race depends among other things upon definite historical and geographical conditions; it is these that unconsciously bring about the ennobling of the original material, the in-breeding and the artificial selection, it is these too -- when a happy star shines over the birthplace of a new people -- that produce happy tribal marriages and prevent the prostitution of the noble in the arms of the ignoble. The fact that there was a time in the nineteenth century when learned investigators, with Buckle at their head, could assert that geographical conditions produced the races, we may now appropriately mention with the scant honour of a paraleipsis; for that doctrine is a blow in the face of all history and all observation. On the other hand, every single one of the laws enumerated, and in addition the examples of Rome, Greece, England, Judea and South America in particular, let us see so clearly in how far the historical and geo• graphical conditions not only contribute to the origin and the decline of a race but are actually decisive factors therein, that I can refrain from further discussion of the matter. [38]