Byssus
05-06-2008, 01:57 AM
Source
The following quotes are taken from "Race: A Study in Superstition" (Jacques Barzun, 1978). More specifically, they're selections from the broad-ranging excerpts M. Barzun includes at the end of his book. Most come to us in translation from late 19th century and early 20th century French sources and will probably be new to denizens of the Phora. I have arranged them as I best saw fit (the headings are my own).
Come one, come all! There will be something of interest, I hope, for everyone.
Table of Contents
What is Race?
Racial Character
Soul of the Race
Race and God
Song of the Blood
Pipe Dreams
Race Difference
Race and Marxism
The End of Racial Science
1. What is Race?
Emile Faguet (1895-1906)
Race is the consciousness of self attaching to institutions, religion, climate, customs, mores, history and language. (Revue Latine, Oct. 25, 1906, 590.)
The barbarian is, after all, of the same race as the Roman and the Greek. He is our cousin. The Yellow man, the Black man, is not in the least our cousin. . . .
Will there be a renaissance, a white soul under a yellow skin? (Jour. des Débats, July 25, 1895, soir.)
Suarès (1916-17)
A race in history is no doubt the more or less intact remains of a race in nature. (André Suarès, La Nation contre la Race, 1916-17, I, 101.) France . . . is not a race, but a nation and a nation is a person. (Ibid., II, 8.) Whether there are races or not in natural history, there are races in history and history recognized them (13). A race is the idea entertained by the men who boast of belonging to it. . . . A race is the opposite of a nation, for a nation is a spirit (14). The danger of the Germans is that they are a race and not a people (16). A race is the corporeal form of a nation. . . . The forest primeval, that is the race (20).
2. Racial Character
Aryans
T.H. Huxley (1879)
The energetic Greek might find fierce joys in a world in which “strife is father and king” but the old Aryan spirit was subdued to quietism in the Indian sage. (Evolution and Ethics, 54.)
Slavs
Balzac (1846)
This strange alliance seemed to be the result of a strong will acting ceaselessly on a weak character, on that inconsistency peculiar to the Slavs which, while it gives them heroic courage in battle, also accounts for their incredible disorder in conduct—a moral flabbiness whose causes ought to interest the physiologists, for physiologists are to politics what entomologists are to agriculture. (La Cousine Bette, 71.)
On Tolstoy (1894)
Where one can discover the man who is truly not of the same blood as ourselves is in the idea he has of beauty and art. In him [Tolstoy], an Asiatic impervious to sense-impressions, the plastic sense does not exist, the beauty of form does not touch him. … In spite of steam, electricity and the newspaper press, the races maintain—all arguments to the contrary notwithstanding—an almost complete autonomy of feeling, sensation and idea. (M. Spronck, Jour. des Débats, June 11, 1894, soir.)
Teutons
Samuel Butler (1879)
Priggism, or whatever the substantive is, is as essentially a Teutonic vice as holiness is a Semitic characteristic. ([I]Alps and Santuaries[/I], 142.)
Semites
Léon Daudet (1921)
The work of the Semite is revolution, the overthrow of the autochthonous by the nomads. (On Edouard Drumont, [I]Revue Universelle[/I], Jan. 1, 1921, 28.)
A. de Candolle (1873)
If Israel peopled all Europe, there would be no more wars, but a very civilized people with excellent qualities and very bearable faults. Science and art would be highly advanced . . . But the children of the Greeks or Latins, Celts, Slavs or Huns would exterminate them. ([I]Hist. des Sci. et des Savants[/I], 405.)
[b]3. The Soul of the Race[/b]
Jean Lorrain (c. 1900)
One must cut loose from individuals and fall in love with a race.
([I]M. de Phocas, A Novel[/I].)
LeBon (1912)
Race plays a mighty rôle in revolutions . . . mixed breeds are ungovernable. . . . The soul of the race is the strongest braking power against social upheaval. ([I]La Révol. Française et la Psychol. des Révol[/I]., 53, 68.)
Louis Blanc (1872)
It is the energetic development of soul and spirit that makes the races strong and it is the strong races that make great peoples. ([I]Discours[/I], Nov. 25, 1872.)
Vacher de Lapouge (1899)
What makes an individual act is the legion of his ancestors buried in the earth. ([I]L’Aryen: Son Rôle Social[/I], 350-351.)
[b]4. Race and God[/b]
Berl (1900)
Religions are not merely doctrines, they are races. ([I]Grande Revue[/I], Oct. 1, 1900, 7.)
Franz Werfel (1932)
The petty bourgeois . . . yearns for “Nordification” or “Latinity”; he concerns himself with Anthropology to prove that his race surpasses all others, though it is well known that the European is a fearful mixture, compared to which any village cur is a pedigreed race-specimen. . . . All this means an impious and sinful hypostatizing of the body into a single Godhead and conceals behind inflated verbiage the dismal despair of lost souls and sick minds. (Vienna, [I]Neue Freie Presse[/I], March 5, 1932.)
Ruth Benedict (1929)
Anthropology has no encouragement to offer to those who would trust our spiritual achievements to the automatic perpetuation of any selected hereditary germ plasms. ([I]Century Magazine[/I], April, 1929.)
[b]5. Song of the Blood[/b]
Jean Richepin (c. 1910)
Before the Aryas, who tilled the soil
There lived Turanians, the wandering killers.
. . . and though I live in France
No Gaul am I, nor Latin. My bones
Are small, yellow my skin, copper my eyes;
I have a rider’s stance and full contempt for laws.
([I]La Chanson du Sang[/I].)
The Mulatto Race (1923)
Ashamed of my race?
And of what race am I?
I am many in one.
Through my veins there flows the blood
of Red Man, Black Man, Briton, Celt and Scot
In warring clash and tumultuous riot.
(Joseph S. Cotter, [I]The Mulatto and
His Critics[/I], 1923)
Taine (1890)
Manifestly, he [Napoleon] is neither a Frenchman nor a man of the eighteenth century. He belongs to another race and another century. . . . Italian he was, by extraction and by blood. ([I]Régime Moderne[/I], I, 5-6.)
Marius-Ary Leblond (1933)
If it is the study of French History that guided him [Hanotaux] to politics and in his foreign policies, it is the spiritual contemplation of the Mediterranean that inspired his wisdom. It differs, however, from that of the ancient Greeks . . . he remained therefore above all a great African with a missionary soul. ([I]Eclaireur de Nice[/I], Nov. 19, 1933.)
[b]6. Pipe Dreams[/b]
Cecil Rhodes (c. 1900)
The furtherance of the English Empire for the bringing of the whole uncivilized world under British rule, for the recovery of the United States, for the making of the Anglo-Saxon race but one empire—what a dream! But yet it is probable. It is a possible. ([I]Last Will and Testament[/I], 33.)
On Jesus Christ (1933)
The name of Galilee does seem of Gallic origin. Christ was a Galilean, was he then a Gaul? There is in this an argument highly in favor of Celticism. (Paul Lecour, [I]Atlantis[/I], Sept.-Oct., 1933.)
[b]7. Race and Marxism[/b]
Karl Marx (c. 1880)
This does not prevent the same economic basis from showing infinite variations and gradations in its appearance, even though its principal conditions are everywhere the same. This is due to innumerable outside circumstances, natural environment, race peculiarities, outside historical influences, and so forth, all of which must be ascertained by careful analysis. ([I]Capital[/I], III, 919.)
Maurice Barrès (1894)
According to race, Hegelianism produces special combinations. It produced Proudhon in France . . . Max Stirner and the sacred law of egotism in Germany. . . . In an absolute Marxist state, the influence of race, occupation and climate would soon regain their power. ([I]De Hegel aux Cantines du Nord[/I], 26.)
[b]8. Race Difference[/b]
C. S. Myers (1909)
The racial differences that exist in reaction-times are largely the outcome of similar psychological factors, determined byhabits of life and possibly by some obscure racial tendency to react rather in the sensorial than in the muscular fashion or vice versa. ([I]A Textbook of Experimental Psychology[/I], 307.)
Nadaillac (c. 1885)
All races are not equally fruitful. Climate, social, economic, biological conditions play a part as yet not scientifically defined. . . . It can be said in general that the Latin races, the French race in particular, are less fecund than the Slavic and Anglo-Saxon races. For us it is a matter of indisputable inferiority. ([I]Affaibliss. de la natalité en France[/I], 71-72.)
Chavée (1873)
. . . the native or acquired difficulty among the Germans of getting the nervous centres of the medulla oblongata to carry out the orders of the cerebral centres regarding syllabic sound-production—they say Fa and Pa for Va and Ba—is a pathological fact still observable in our own day. ([I]Bull. Soc. Anthrop.[/I], 1873, 505.)
Souffret (1892)
Would the Australian in Europe ever become German, Slav, Celt or Latin? ([I]De la Disparité . . . des races[/I], 9.)
[b]9. The End of Racial Science[/b]
T.H. Huxley (1894)
The criminal law . . . prevents the propagation of hereditary criminal tendencies; and the poor-law, in so far as it separates married couples whose destitution arises from hereditary defects of character, are doubtless selective agents operating in favor of the non-criminal and the more effective members of society. (Evolution and Ethics, 38.)
University of Chicago (1936)
The department of anthropology of the University of Chicago approves the suggestion made recently by Dr. I. Zollschan of Carlsbad that the League of Nations call an international conference of scientists to enlighten the world on the question of race. ([I]New York Times[/I], Apr. 27, 1936.)
The following quotes are taken from "Race: A Study in Superstition" (Jacques Barzun, 1978). More specifically, they're selections from the broad-ranging excerpts M. Barzun includes at the end of his book. Most come to us in translation from late 19th century and early 20th century French sources and will probably be new to denizens of the Phora. I have arranged them as I best saw fit (the headings are my own).
Come one, come all! There will be something of interest, I hope, for everyone.
Table of Contents
What is Race?
Racial Character
Soul of the Race
Race and God
Song of the Blood
Pipe Dreams
Race Difference
Race and Marxism
The End of Racial Science
1. What is Race?
Emile Faguet (1895-1906)
Race is the consciousness of self attaching to institutions, religion, climate, customs, mores, history and language. (Revue Latine, Oct. 25, 1906, 590.)
The barbarian is, after all, of the same race as the Roman and the Greek. He is our cousin. The Yellow man, the Black man, is not in the least our cousin. . . .
Will there be a renaissance, a white soul under a yellow skin? (Jour. des Débats, July 25, 1895, soir.)
Suarès (1916-17)
A race in history is no doubt the more or less intact remains of a race in nature. (André Suarès, La Nation contre la Race, 1916-17, I, 101.) France . . . is not a race, but a nation and a nation is a person. (Ibid., II, 8.) Whether there are races or not in natural history, there are races in history and history recognized them (13). A race is the idea entertained by the men who boast of belonging to it. . . . A race is the opposite of a nation, for a nation is a spirit (14). The danger of the Germans is that they are a race and not a people (16). A race is the corporeal form of a nation. . . . The forest primeval, that is the race (20).
2. Racial Character
Aryans
T.H. Huxley (1879)
The energetic Greek might find fierce joys in a world in which “strife is father and king” but the old Aryan spirit was subdued to quietism in the Indian sage. (Evolution and Ethics, 54.)
Slavs
Balzac (1846)
This strange alliance seemed to be the result of a strong will acting ceaselessly on a weak character, on that inconsistency peculiar to the Slavs which, while it gives them heroic courage in battle, also accounts for their incredible disorder in conduct—a moral flabbiness whose causes ought to interest the physiologists, for physiologists are to politics what entomologists are to agriculture. (La Cousine Bette, 71.)
On Tolstoy (1894)
Where one can discover the man who is truly not of the same blood as ourselves is in the idea he has of beauty and art. In him [Tolstoy], an Asiatic impervious to sense-impressions, the plastic sense does not exist, the beauty of form does not touch him. … In spite of steam, electricity and the newspaper press, the races maintain—all arguments to the contrary notwithstanding—an almost complete autonomy of feeling, sensation and idea. (M. Spronck, Jour. des Débats, June 11, 1894, soir.)
Teutons
Samuel Butler (1879)
Priggism, or whatever the substantive is, is as essentially a Teutonic vice as holiness is a Semitic characteristic. ([I]Alps and Santuaries[/I], 142.)
Semites
Léon Daudet (1921)
The work of the Semite is revolution, the overthrow of the autochthonous by the nomads. (On Edouard Drumont, [I]Revue Universelle[/I], Jan. 1, 1921, 28.)
A. de Candolle (1873)
If Israel peopled all Europe, there would be no more wars, but a very civilized people with excellent qualities and very bearable faults. Science and art would be highly advanced . . . But the children of the Greeks or Latins, Celts, Slavs or Huns would exterminate them. ([I]Hist. des Sci. et des Savants[/I], 405.)
[b]3. The Soul of the Race[/b]
Jean Lorrain (c. 1900)
One must cut loose from individuals and fall in love with a race.
([I]M. de Phocas, A Novel[/I].)
LeBon (1912)
Race plays a mighty rôle in revolutions . . . mixed breeds are ungovernable. . . . The soul of the race is the strongest braking power against social upheaval. ([I]La Révol. Française et la Psychol. des Révol[/I]., 53, 68.)
Louis Blanc (1872)
It is the energetic development of soul and spirit that makes the races strong and it is the strong races that make great peoples. ([I]Discours[/I], Nov. 25, 1872.)
Vacher de Lapouge (1899)
What makes an individual act is the legion of his ancestors buried in the earth. ([I]L’Aryen: Son Rôle Social[/I], 350-351.)
[b]4. Race and God[/b]
Berl (1900)
Religions are not merely doctrines, they are races. ([I]Grande Revue[/I], Oct. 1, 1900, 7.)
Franz Werfel (1932)
The petty bourgeois . . . yearns for “Nordification” or “Latinity”; he concerns himself with Anthropology to prove that his race surpasses all others, though it is well known that the European is a fearful mixture, compared to which any village cur is a pedigreed race-specimen. . . . All this means an impious and sinful hypostatizing of the body into a single Godhead and conceals behind inflated verbiage the dismal despair of lost souls and sick minds. (Vienna, [I]Neue Freie Presse[/I], March 5, 1932.)
Ruth Benedict (1929)
Anthropology has no encouragement to offer to those who would trust our spiritual achievements to the automatic perpetuation of any selected hereditary germ plasms. ([I]Century Magazine[/I], April, 1929.)
[b]5. Song of the Blood[/b]
Jean Richepin (c. 1910)
Before the Aryas, who tilled the soil
There lived Turanians, the wandering killers.
. . . and though I live in France
No Gaul am I, nor Latin. My bones
Are small, yellow my skin, copper my eyes;
I have a rider’s stance and full contempt for laws.
([I]La Chanson du Sang[/I].)
The Mulatto Race (1923)
Ashamed of my race?
And of what race am I?
I am many in one.
Through my veins there flows the blood
of Red Man, Black Man, Briton, Celt and Scot
In warring clash and tumultuous riot.
(Joseph S. Cotter, [I]The Mulatto and
His Critics[/I], 1923)
Taine (1890)
Manifestly, he [Napoleon] is neither a Frenchman nor a man of the eighteenth century. He belongs to another race and another century. . . . Italian he was, by extraction and by blood. ([I]Régime Moderne[/I], I, 5-6.)
Marius-Ary Leblond (1933)
If it is the study of French History that guided him [Hanotaux] to politics and in his foreign policies, it is the spiritual contemplation of the Mediterranean that inspired his wisdom. It differs, however, from that of the ancient Greeks . . . he remained therefore above all a great African with a missionary soul. ([I]Eclaireur de Nice[/I], Nov. 19, 1933.)
[b]6. Pipe Dreams[/b]
Cecil Rhodes (c. 1900)
The furtherance of the English Empire for the bringing of the whole uncivilized world under British rule, for the recovery of the United States, for the making of the Anglo-Saxon race but one empire—what a dream! But yet it is probable. It is a possible. ([I]Last Will and Testament[/I], 33.)
On Jesus Christ (1933)
The name of Galilee does seem of Gallic origin. Christ was a Galilean, was he then a Gaul? There is in this an argument highly in favor of Celticism. (Paul Lecour, [I]Atlantis[/I], Sept.-Oct., 1933.)
[b]7. Race and Marxism[/b]
Karl Marx (c. 1880)
This does not prevent the same economic basis from showing infinite variations and gradations in its appearance, even though its principal conditions are everywhere the same. This is due to innumerable outside circumstances, natural environment, race peculiarities, outside historical influences, and so forth, all of which must be ascertained by careful analysis. ([I]Capital[/I], III, 919.)
Maurice Barrès (1894)
According to race, Hegelianism produces special combinations. It produced Proudhon in France . . . Max Stirner and the sacred law of egotism in Germany. . . . In an absolute Marxist state, the influence of race, occupation and climate would soon regain their power. ([I]De Hegel aux Cantines du Nord[/I], 26.)
[b]8. Race Difference[/b]
C. S. Myers (1909)
The racial differences that exist in reaction-times are largely the outcome of similar psychological factors, determined byhabits of life and possibly by some obscure racial tendency to react rather in the sensorial than in the muscular fashion or vice versa. ([I]A Textbook of Experimental Psychology[/I], 307.)
Nadaillac (c. 1885)
All races are not equally fruitful. Climate, social, economic, biological conditions play a part as yet not scientifically defined. . . . It can be said in general that the Latin races, the French race in particular, are less fecund than the Slavic and Anglo-Saxon races. For us it is a matter of indisputable inferiority. ([I]Affaibliss. de la natalité en France[/I], 71-72.)
Chavée (1873)
. . . the native or acquired difficulty among the Germans of getting the nervous centres of the medulla oblongata to carry out the orders of the cerebral centres regarding syllabic sound-production—they say Fa and Pa for Va and Ba—is a pathological fact still observable in our own day. ([I]Bull. Soc. Anthrop.[/I], 1873, 505.)
Souffret (1892)
Would the Australian in Europe ever become German, Slav, Celt or Latin? ([I]De la Disparité . . . des races[/I], 9.)
[b]9. The End of Racial Science[/b]
T.H. Huxley (1894)
The criminal law . . . prevents the propagation of hereditary criminal tendencies; and the poor-law, in so far as it separates married couples whose destitution arises from hereditary defects of character, are doubtless selective agents operating in favor of the non-criminal and the more effective members of society. (Evolution and Ethics, 38.)
University of Chicago (1936)
The department of anthropology of the University of Chicago approves the suggestion made recently by Dr. I. Zollschan of Carlsbad that the League of Nations call an international conference of scientists to enlighten the world on the question of race. ([I]New York Times[/I], Apr. 27, 1936.)