Part 11 (1/2)

CHAPTER X

THE GERMAN RACE HERESY AND THE WAR

I.

It is the purpose of the following article to single out one aspect of the war which has been strangely neglected. It is our purpose to emphasize the influence which the obsession of one particular idea, the German race theory, has exercised over the German mind and the part which it has played in bringing about the war of the nations.

False ideas have been the dragon's teeth from which have risen the legions of five continents. Amongst those false ideas the most deadly, the most fatal, has been the German heresy of race, the theory of race inequality and race antagonism. It is in the name of that race heresy, in the name of Germanism and Pan-Germanism, of Slavism and Pan-Slavism, of Saxonism and Pan-Saxonism, the war is being waged.

We read the following pa.s.sage in a recent book by Sven Hedin, the official chronicler of the German armies:

”Here is a (German) reservist. What a tremendous figure! What can Latins, Slavs, Celts, j.a.ps, Negroes, Hindus, Ghurkas, Turcos, and whatever they are called, do against such strapping giants of the true Germanic type? His features are superbly n.o.ble, and he seems pleased with his day's work. He does not regret that he has offered his life for Germany's just cause.”

In this odious pa.s.sage we have in a few lines the whole history and the whole philosophy of the tragedy. We have the spirit with which the Germans have waged the war, we have the motive for which they have waged it, and we have the ultimate purpose which they hope to achieve-namely, to force upon a subjected Europe the rule of the super-race of Treitschke and the _bionda bestia_ of Nietzsche.

In former times, in the so-called ”Dark Age,” nations would fight for the human, rational, but impracticable principle of orthodoxy. To-day we are fighting for the inhuman, for the equally impracticable and immoral principle of race antagonism. Germans fight because through their veins courses the red blood of the Teutons of Tacitus. They are fighting because they are convinced that they have the Might and the Right and the Duty of crus.h.i.+ng the French and the Russians, because through French veins courses the tainted blood of the Gauls of Caesar, and because through the veins of the Slavs courses the white fluid of the slave and the yellow fluid of the Tatar.

II.

It is one of the commonplaces of the economic school that the economic motive is the main factor which makes for peace or war, that material interests only count, and that ideas do not matter. It is one of the shallow illusions of the pseudo-rationalist school that the age of religious wars is pa.s.sed for ever. As a matter of fact, this war is as much a religious war as any crusade that was ever waged. The only difference between the religious war of to-day and the religious wars of yesterday is that in the past dogmas were promulgated by priests and saints in the name of Theology. The dogmas of to-day are promulgated in the name of Science by the high-priests of Universities and Academies. A few mystical Greek words, such as _h.o.m.ousios_ and _h.o.m.oiousios_, were the watchwords of the crusades of old. A few equally mystical Greek words, _brachycephalic_ and _dolichocephalic_, are the watchwords of the crusades of to-day.

III.

It may seem the idle conceit of a dreamer out of touch with reality to a.s.sert that it is principles which mainly matter and that it is the ideal which is the ultimate reality. It may seem a ludicrous exaggeration to a.s.sert that a mere abstract scientific theory, apparently so innocuous as is the German race theory, could be held responsible for so t.i.tanic a catastrophe. Surely there seems to be here no relation and no proportion between cause and effect. Yet it does not take a prolonged effort of profound thinking to understand the portentous political significance of the German race heresy. It is not difficult to understand that according as we believe that history is mainly a conflict of ideals or according as we believe that history is mainly a conflict of material interests, or a conflict of races, we shall consistently either believe in peace or in war as the normal condition of humanity. Conflicts of ideas ought rationally to make for peace. Conflicts of material interests will frequently, although not necessarily, make for war. Conflicts of races must inevitably and always make for war.

If you believe in the materialistic theory that human history is mainly made up of the inevitable antagonism between Aryan and Semite, between Slav and Teuton, between Celt and Anglo-Saxon, then you must also believe that war is the permanent and beneficial factor in human history. For the conflicts of races for supremacy can only be solved through war.

On the other hand, if you believe in the idealistic theory that human history is mainly a conflict of spiritual and moral and political ideals, then peace is the ultimate factor. For human experience and human reason equally teach us that a conflict of spiritual ideals cannot be solved by violence. They can only be solved by discussion and argument, by persuasion and conversion, by the spread of education, by clear thinking and strenuous working, by the diffusion of sweetness and light. Both reason and wisdom teach us that truth and faith are like love-they cannot be imposed by force.

IV.

Underlying the theory of race there is a first a.s.sumption that there is such a thing as a distinct racial type; that there are definite breeds of men, Aryans and Semites, Celts and Teutons, just as there are definite breeds of dogs and pigeons; that human breeds are evolved by similar selective processes; that those distinct racial types are the main factor in the history of nations; that those types are endowed with specific anatomical and physiological characteristics, and that those physiological characteristics carry with them equally definite moral, intellectual, and political qualities.

And there is a second a.s.sumption which is the corollary of the first.

Not only is there a separation of races, there is also an inequality of races. ”L'Inegalite des Races humaines” is the t.i.tle of the epoch-making book of Count de Gobineau. The ”Separation of Race” is a biological and objective fact. But to that biological fact we must add a moral and subjective distinction. Some races are n.o.ble, others are ign.o.ble. Some races are born to rule, other races are born to obey, to be ”hewers of wood and drawers of water.” The Slav is born a slave to be controlled by the Germans. The Serbian is born a serf to be controlled by the Austrians. The Bohemian is an outcast. The Pole is a drunkard. The Celt is a weakling. The Anglo-Saxon is a mercenary. The Russian is a Tatar and a brute.

V.

The German race theory is propped up by a formidable array of so-called scientific proofs. All the auxiliary disciplines of biology, botany and zoology, physiology and anatomy, are enlisted in the service of anthropology and ethnology. The question as to whether a particular nation is a _Kultur Volk_ or whether it is only a rabble of slaves depends entirely on whether the facies is square or oval, brachycephalic or oligocephalic. It depends entirely-to use the pedantic jargon of the anthropologist-on the ”cephalic index” of the race.

The historical sciences are called in to support the conclusions of ethnology. It is especially philology which is the most efficient instrument demonstrating the existence and the superiority of a distinct race. Just as anatomy reveals to us the structure of the cranium, so philology reveals to us the structure of the mind. The philologist reveals the genealogies of words even as the anthropologist studies the genealogies of races.

In the burning controversies which for the last generation have divided the Tchech and Magyar and Croatian and Roumanian races of the Austrian Empire, it is the philologists who have acted as umpires. In Vienna philologists like von Jagic have all the authority and prestige of statesmen. Similarly, in the Balkan States, Serbians and Bulgarians, Roumanians and Greeks, find conclusive evidence of their respective rights in the dialects of the Macedonian populations. Such and such a province must be allotted to the Serbians, and not to the Bulgarians, because such and such a dialect has more affinity to the Serbian than to the Bulgarian language. Similarly, in the Latin elements of their dictionary, Roumanian patriots find convincing evidence of their Latin ancestry, and finally prove that they are the lineal descendants of the Dacian legions of Emperor Trajan.[21]

[21] The Roumanian language is a composite language like English. Even as the English vocabulary is mainly a blend of Anglo-Saxon and Franco-Norman, so the Roumanian language is a blend of Latin and Slavonic words. Many years ago the British and Foreign Bible Society published a Roumanian Bible from which the majority of the Slavonic words had been eliminated.

I pointed out in _Everyman_ that this Roumanian translation was not Roumanian at all. The authorities of the Bible Society indignantly protested and asked me to withdraw. I refused to withdraw. The British and Foreign Bible Society investigated the question, deferring to my criticisms, and prepared and published a new revised version of their Roumanian Bible in which the Slavonic words largely composing the religious vocabulary of Roumania have been restored.

VI.