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.