The Passing of the Great Race
By Madison Grant
Part I - Race, Language, And Nationality
Chapter
V
Race, Language, and Nationality
|
NATIONALITY is an
artificial political grouping of population, usually centering around a
single language as an expression of traditions and aspirations. Nationality
can, however, exist independently of language, but states thus formed, such
as Belgium or Austria, are far less stable than those where a uniform
language is prevalent, as, for example, France or England. States without a single national language
are constantly exposed to disintegration, especially where a substantial
minority of the inhabitants speak a tongue which is predominant in an adjoining
state with, as a consequence, a tendency to gravitate toward such state. The history of the last century in Europe
has been the record of a long series of struggles to unite in one political
unit all those speaking the same, or closely allied, dialects. With the
exception of internal and social revolutions, every European war since the
Napoleonic period has been caused by the effort to bring about the
unification either of Italy or of Germany, or by the desperate attempts of
the Balkan States to struggle out of Turkish chaos into modern European
nations on a basis of community of language. The unification of both Italy
and Germany is as yet incomplete, according to the views held by their more
advanced patriots, and the solution of the Balkan question is still in the
future. Men are keenly aware of their nationality
and are very sensitive about their language, but only in a few cases, notably
in Sweden and Germany, does any large section of the population possess
anything analogous to true race consciousness? although the term
"race" is everywhere misused to designate linguistic or political
groups. It sometimes happens that a section of the
population of a large nation gathers around language, reinforced by religion,
as an expression of individuality. The struggle between the French-speaking
Alpine Walloons and the Nordic Flemings of Low Dutch tongue in Belgium is an
example of two competing languages in an artificial nation which was formed
originally around religion. On the other hand, the Irish National movement
centers chiefly around religion, reinforced by myths of ancient grandeur. The
French Canadians and the Poles use both religion and language to hold
together what they consider a political unit. None of these so-called
nationalities are founded on race. During the past century alongside of the
tendency to form imperial or large national groups, such as the Pan-Germanic,
Pan-Slavic, Pan-Rumanian or Italia Irredenta movements, there has appeared a
counter movement on the part of small disintegrating " nationalities
" to reassert themselves, such as the Bohemian, Bulgar, Serb, Irish, and
Egyptian national revivals. The upheaval is usually caused, as in the cases
of the Irish and the Serbians, by delusions of former greatness now become national
obsessions, but sometimes it means the resistance of a small group of higher
culture to absorption by a lower civilization. Examples of a high type threatened by a
lower culture are afforded by the Finlanders, who are trying to escape the
dire fate of their neighbors across the Gulf of Finland-the Russification of
the Germans and Swedes of the Baltic Provinces-and by the struggle of the
Danes of Schleswig to escape Germanization. The Armenians, too, have resisted
stoutly the pressure of Islam to force them away from their ancient Christian
faith. This people really represents the last outpost of Europe toward the
Mohammedan East and constitutes the best remaining medium through which
Western ideals and culture can be introduced into Asia. In these as in other cases, the process of
absorption from the view-point of the world at large is good or evil exactly
in proportion to the relative value of the culture and race of the two
groups. The world would be no richer in civilization with an independent
Bohemia or an enlarged Rumania, but, on the contrary, an independent
Hungarian nation or an enlarged Greece would add greatly to the forces that
make for good government and progress. An independent Ireland worked out on a
Tammany model is not a pleasing prospect. A free Poland, apart from its value
as a buffer state, would be actually a step backward. Poland was once great,
but the elements that made it so are dead and gone, and to-day Poland is a
geographical expression and nothing more. The prevailing lack of true race
consciousness is probably due to the fact that every important nation in
Europe, as at present organized, with the sole exception of the Iberian and
Scandinavian states, possesses in large proportions representatives of at
least two of the fundamental European subspecies of man and of all manner of
crosses between them. In France to-day, as in Caesar's Gaul, the three races
divide the nation in almost equal proportions. In the future, however, with an increased
knowledge of the correct definition of true human species and types, and with
a recognition of the immutability of fundamental racial characters, and of
the results of mixed breeding, far more value will be attached to racial in
contrast to national or linguistic affinities. In marital relations the con-
sciousness of race will also play a much larger part than at present,
although in the social sphere we shall have to contend with a certain strange
attraction for contrasted types. When it becomes thoroughly understood that
the children of mixed marriages between contrasted races belong to the lower
type, the importance of transmitting in unimpaired purity the blood
inheritance of ages will be appreciated at its full value, and to bring
halfbreeds into the world will be regarded as a social and racial crime of
the first magnitude. The laws against miscegenation must be greatly extended
if the higher races are to be maintained. The language that a man speaks may be
nothing more than evidence that at some time in the past his race has been in
contact, either as conqueror or as conquered, with the original possessors of
such language. One has only to consider the spread of the language of Rome
over the vast extent of her empire, to realize how few of those who to-day
speak Romance languages derive any portion of their blood from the pure Latin
stock, and the error of talking about a "Latin race" becomes
evident. There is, however, such a thing as a large
group of nations which have a mutual understanding and sympathy, based on the
possession of a common or closely related group of languages and the culture
of which it is the medium. This group may be called the "Latin
nations," but never the "Latin race." "Latin America" is a still
greater misnomer as the great mass of the populations of South and Central
America is not even European, and still less "Latin," being
overwhelmingly of Amerindian blood. In the Teutonic group a large majority of
those who speak Teutonic languages, as the English, Flemings, Dutch, North
Germans, and Scandinavians, are descended from the Nordic race, and the
dominant class in Europe is everywhere of that blood. As to the so-called "Celtic
race," the fantastic inapplicability of the term is at once apparent
when we consider that those populations on the borders of the Atlantic Ocean,
who to-day speak Celtic dialects, are divided into three groups, each one
showing in great purity the characters of one of the three entirely distinct
human subspecies found in Europe. To class together the Breton peasant with
his round Alpine skull; the little, long skull, brunet Welshman of the
Mediterranean race, and the tall, blond, light eyed Scottish Highlander of
pure Nordic race, in a single group labelled "Celtic," is obviously
impossible. These peoples have neither physical, mental, nor cultural
characteristics in common. If one be "Celtic" blood the other two
clearly are not. There was a people who were the original
users of the Celtic language, and they formed the western vanguard of the
Nordic race, which was spread all over central and western Europe, prior to
the irruption of the Teutonic tribes. The descendants of these
"Celts" must be sought to-day among those having the characters of
the Nordic race and not elsewhere. In England the little, dark Mediterranean
Welshman talks about being Celtic quite unconscious that he is the residuum
of Pre-Nordic races of immense antiquity. If the Celts are Mediterranean in
race, then they are absent from central Europe, and we must regard as
"Celts" all the Berbers and Egyptians, as well as many Persians and
Hindus. In France some enthusiasts regard the
Breton of Alpine blood in the same light, and ignore his Asiatic origin. If
these Alpine Bretons are " Celts " then there is not in the British
Isles any substantial trace of their blood, as round skulls are practically
absent there, and all the blond elements in England, Scotland, and Ireland
must be attributed to the historic Teutonic invasions. Furthermore we must
call all the continental Alpines "Celts," and must also include all
Slavs, Armenians, and other brachycephs of western Asia within that
designation, which would be obviously grotesque. The fact that the original
Celts left behind their speech on the tongues of Mediterraneans in Wales, and
of Alpines in Brittany, must not mislead us, as it indicates nothing more
than that Celtic speech antedates the Teutons in England and the Romans in
France. We must once and for all time discard the name "Celt" for
any existing race whatever, and speak only of " Celtic" language
and culture. In Ireland the big, blond Nordic Danes,
claim the honor of the name of "Celt," if honor it be, but the
Irish are fully as Nordic as the English, the great mass of them being of
Danish, Norse, and Anglo-Norman blood, in addition to earlier and Pre-Teutonic
elements. We are all familiar with the blond and the brunet type of Irishman.
These represent precisely the same racial elements as those which enter into
the composition of the English, namely, the tall Nordic blond and the little
Mediterranean brunet. The Irish are consequently not entitled to independent
national existence on the ground of race, but if there is any ground for a
political separation from England, it must rest, like that of Belgium, on
religion, a basis for political combinations now happily obsolete in
communities well advanced in culture. In the case of the so-called "Slavic
race," there is much more unity between racial type and language. It is
true that in most Slavic-speaking countries the predominant race is clearly
Alpine, except perhaps in Russia where there is a very large substratum of
Nordic type the so-called Finnic element, which may be considered as Proto-
Nordic. The objection which is made to the identification of the Slavic race
with the Alpine type rests chiefly on the fact that a very large portion of
the Alpine race is German-speaking in Germany, Italian-speaking in Italy, and
French-speaking in central France. Moreover, large portions of Rumania are of
exactly the same racial complexion. Many of the Greeks are also Alpines; in
fact, are little more than Byzantinized Slavs. It was through the Byzantine
Empire, that the Slavs first came in contact with the Mediterranean world,
and through this Greek medium the Russians, the Serbians, the Rumanians, and
the Bulgars received their Christianity. Situated on the eastern marches of Europe
the Slavs were submerged during long periods in the Middle Ages by Mongolian
hordes, and were checked in development and warped in culture. Definite
traces remain of the blood of the Mongols in both isolated and compact groups
in south Russia, and scattered throughout the whole country as far west as
the German boundary. The high tide of the Mongol invasion was during the
thirteenth century. Three hundred years later the great Muscovite expansion
began, first over the steppes to the Urals, and then across Siberian tundras
and forests to the waters of the Pacific, taking up in its course much
Mongolian blood, especially during the early stages of its advance. The term "Caucasian race" has
ceased to have any meaning except where it is used, in the United States, to
contrast white populations with negroes or Indians, or, in the Old World,
with Mongols. It is, however, a convenient term to include the three European
subspecies when considered as divisions of one of the primary branches or
subgenera of mankind. At best it is a cumbersome and archaic designation. The
name "Caucasian" arose a century ago from a false assumption that
the cradle of the blond Europeans was in the Caucasus, where there are now
found no traces of any such race, except a small and decreasing minority of
blond traits among the Ossetes, a tribe whose Aryan speech is related to that
of the Armenians, and who, while mainly brachycephalic, still retain some
blond and dolichocephalic elements which are apparently fading fast. The
Ossetes have now about thirty per cent fair eyes and ten per cent fair hair.
They are supposed to be, to some extent, a remnant of the Alans, a Teutonic
tribe closely related to the Goths. Both Alans and Goths very early in our
era occupied southern Russia, and were the latest known Nordics in the
vicinity of the Caucasus Mountains. If these Ossetes are not partly of Alan
origin they may possibly represent the last lingering trace of early Scythian
dolichocephalic blondness. The phrase " Indo-European race "
is also of little use. If it has any meaning at all it must include all the
three European races as well as members of the Mediterranean race in Persia
and India. The use of this name also involves a false assumption of blood
relationship between the main European populations and the Hindus, because of
their possession in common of Aryan speech. The name "Aryan race" must also
be frankly discarded as a term of racial significance. It is to-day purely
linguistic, although there was at one time, of course, an identity between
the original Aryan mother tongue and the race that first spoke and developed
it. In short there is not now, and there never was either a Caucasian or an
Indo-European race, but there was once, thousands of years ago, an Aryan race
now long since vanished into dim memories of the past. If used in a racial
sense other than as above it should be limited to the Nordic invaders of
Hindustan now long extinct. The great lapse of time since the disappearance
of the ancient Aryan race as such, is measured by the extreme disintegration
of the various groups of Aryan languages. These linguistic divergences are
chiefly due to the imposition by conquest of Aryan speech upon several
unrelated subspecies of man throughout western Asia and Europe. |
Continue on to Chapter 6 -
Race and Language