2
Ernst Kretschmer (important psychiatrist): Genius and Race
Our modem investigators of European race problems
are constantly in danger of assigning to European civilisation,
or to some particular race which they regard as its bearer,
an unparalleled value and importance for humanity. Such
investigators—and there are few who really succeed in
keeping themselves entirely free from this error—always
remind me of the highly educated Chinese gentleman who
wondered how it could possibly be, that European women
were almost all ugly, whereas Chinese women were very
seldom so. The voice of our blood will always intrude in
the discussion and make us believe that the creations of
men of our own race are invariably the most illuminating
and the most important. In the second place, it is easy
at the present time to credit the supremacy of western
culture to the quality of European races, forgetting thereby
that those races which are now the bearers of our civilisation
were despised barbarians in earlier millenniums, at a time
when flowering Asiatic civilisations were produced by other
races. A survey of culture at that period might have given
rise to estimates of the Nordic race akin to those which
we are now accustomed to make of the Negro. It is our
own good right to propagate the ideals and further the
interests of our own race in the political sphere. But that
has nothing to do with the search for scientific knowledge
and truth.
In the book of knowledge, the chapter of racial psychology
is still a very lamentable one. Not because the statements
of race theorisers as to the particular characters of races
were entirely wrong, but because these qualities were so
arbitrarily picked out that the final pictures were complete
misrepresentations. Almost invariably the works on racial
psychology are so written that one has no difficulty in
perceiving the way in which the author, with a show of
scientific methods, is setting out to glorify his own race, or,
at least, his own political tendencies and fanatical idealisms.
The political label of these writers is revealed to a casual
glance at the race types they depict: it stands out large
on every page of their books. The writer hates the Jews
and is enthusiastic about aristocrats; When he is a Frenchman, he extols the ideals of his own people under the
pseudonym ‘ Celtic race ’; or, as a German, he honours the
Nordic race. One tries, as with every chauvinistic psychology, to find the finest representatives of one’s own race
and the most miserable specimens of other races. Then one
presents them in strong colours, side by side, sketching only
the positive, valuable traits of one people and the negative
characters of the other, nimbly evading, at the same time,
all contrary evidence. Such treatment appears in the
otherwise interesting and informative books of Günther,
which, by leaving out the most fundamental statistical
facts, present the Nordic race as the only one which is
basically creative and aspiring, whilst caricaturing the Alpine
race (the chief constituent in the populations of southern
Germany, France and Italy) as a mob of dull-witted, narrowminded, slavish, round-headed, sallow-skinned individuals.
Precisely the reverse prejudice is found in the inspired
panegyrics of Frenchmen and Italians. For them it is just
these Alpine and Mediterranean types, these ‘ Latin races
which figure as the lively, temperamental, artistic branch
of humanity, the producers of genius and the bearers of
civilisation, and for which the Nordic race, meaning thereby
the English and Prussians, must serve as a mere foil. In
this inverted mirror, the Nordic heroes of Günther suddenly
appear as an army of lanky, long-headed, flaxen-haired
sheep faces; stiff English governesses, grotesque Prussian
lieutenants and high school teachers as we know them in
comic papers; in short, a group of stiff, brutal pedants,
lacking in the characteristics of genius.
This path leads, not to the growth of knowledge, but to
the bolstering-up of the prejudices, vanities and hatreds of
classes, races and nations, and to entirely premature political
experiments in population control. Actually, even the
physical characterisation of European races is still in its
infancy as a science. It is not even certain whether the
skull shape, which is the basis of attempts to trace the
development of races in prehistoric times, is always inherited with unchanging constancy of form. It is far more
likely, according to recent statistics and experiments,
especially the contributions of Boas ( a fraud- remark GL) and Eugen Fischer,
that it alters rapidly with change of environment. American
investigators even assert that the skull form of immigrant
families in that country has altered within a few generations.
If we think out this matter to its furthest conclusions we
arrive at a conception in which the term ' race ’ expresses
approximately what in plant biology is designated by ‘ local
variety ’. In that case the bodily and mental characteristics
of race would not be immutable, firmly-linked hereditary
root characters, but would only appear as long as the people
concerned remained under approximately the same physico-
chemical conditions of environment in regard to climate,
soil, etc. If some of these environmental factors altered,
the signs of race conditioned by them, would also alter.
It might happen, for example, that a race which has dwelt
for as long as one can remember, in a coastal district, and
been characterised by blond hair, tallness and a long skull,
would produce, on being transferred to a mountain climate,
a short-skulled, blond variant, entirely without the admixture
of blood of other races.
Then the whole question of the immutability of the
mental qualities of races would once more be reduced to
uncertainty. Even if we attempted to establish the mental
racial types according to the physical forms at present
accepted, it would be necessary, first, to obtain far more
comprehensive statistics than are at present available, and
to advance considerably the psychological study of mental
traits in particular races. Only on the basis of sound facts
dare one proceed to judgments of racial value. And the
verdicts, drawn with due caution, would certainly not lie
entirely in favour of any particular race.
Having once and for all thrown out these observations
on the complexity and the scientific backwardness of the
study of race, we will proceed to avail ourselves of the
simplest and most certain facts in regard to types with
which the anthropological text-books commonly supply us.
With regard to any detail whatsoever, it is far safer to
follow calm, matter-of-fact authorities like Eugen Fischer,
than the more numerous popular enthusiasts and propagandists. We shall limit our studies to the European
races, since for them alone is there a sufficiency of comprehensive, accessible material.
The Nordic race has its strongest and relatively purest
distribution in the German north-east coast-lands,in England
and in Scandinavia. As one passes towards south Germany,
it becomes ever more strongly mixed with the Alpine race.
In pursuing this study, we will leave out, owing to the
insufficiency of psychological research, the Dinaric race,
which runs into south-eastern Germany. Thus the difference
between the nature of north and of south Germany is
roughly described by saying that south Germany is, on an
average, more Alpine and the north more purely Nordic in
type. The Nordic race is described by anthropologists as
follows. In build, tall and slim, tending rather to leanness
and with long limbs. The skull is long and narrow and
the occiput projects outwards, well beyond the line of the
neck. The face is equally long and narrow, and the nose
prominent and slender. The chin springs forward in a
clear line; the cheeks are thin and not at all prominent.
The hair is soft and blond, and the skin, which is clear and
very light in tint, permits the capillary blood to be seen
through it.
The Alpine race, on the other hand, is of middling
stature, compact, underset, short-limbed and inclined to
corpulency; the skull is round and short; the skin
(according to the observations of Günther) is somewhat
opaque, veiling the blood, sallow and yellowish. The hair
and eyes are brown; the hair thick, straight and stiff but
showing a relatively very meagre growth on the chin. Of
these physical characteristics, only the hair and eye colour,
the skull form and the bodily dimensions have really been
established by exact and extensive statistical enquiries:
the rest is filled in largely by casual observation and hence
should be accepted only with reservations.
Owing to certain obvious resemblances, it has been
suggested that these racial types are identical with the
clinical constitution types which recent psychological research
has established. The Alpine man is covered by the Pyknic
(rotund, underset) type, the Nordic by the leptosomatic
(lean, narrowly-built) physique, whilst the Dinaric race is
identified with the athletic constitution types. That would
be a great boon to racial psychology, for we are well
acquainted with the psychological make-up of these constitution types. We know the pyknic man, with his alternation of lively, merry moods and depressed, matter-offact outlook, which we describe as a cyclothymic temperament ; equally we understand the leptosome, with his
schizothyme nature, his cool exterior and his sensitive,
quibbling, withdrawn inner life.
But the question of identity of race and constitution
types must be considered to-day as decided, and that in
the negative sense. Exact statistical results, such as those
of von Rohden, and especially Henckel, tell us that the
pyknic and leptosomatic types show no difference in just
those characters that are of racial significance: hair and
eye colour, skull index and bodily dimensions—the features
which at once distinguish the Alpine from the Nordic race.
Weidenreich has correctly demonstrated from a quantity
of material that broadly- and narrowly-built types occur
widely in all nations and all races. Thus the Alpine race is
certainly not conterminous with the pyknic, neither is the
Nordic race identical with the leptosomatic, constitution
type.
However, the possibility remains that among certain
races, or mixtures of races, one may produce a greater
percentage of pyknic types, another a greater percentage
of leptosome variants. In other words, there might not be
pyknic and leptosomatic races, but races relatively pyknic
or leptosomatic, and correspondingly more cyclothyme or
more schizothyme in mentality. There could also be races
with a stronger production of athletic physiques, as had
been thought of the Dinaric race, but this possibility we
will forthwith leave out of our study, for the race is of
lesser importance in the psychological, cultural problems of
modem Europe. But it is precisely with the two most
important races in cultural connections, the Nordic and
the Alpine, that the constitution-psychology viewpoint is
constantly thrusting itself into prominence, not only in the
mutual judgments passed by these peoples, but also in
clinical, statistical studies. The frequency of typical circular
affective disturbances (which, it will be remembered, have
a close relationship to the cyclothymic cast of temperament
in normal, healthy people) certainly varies with the racial
origin of the group, as also does the incidence of pyknic
physiques. I can witness, from my own practice, that there
are more affective disturbances of a marked melancholic
and manic form in Swabia than in Hessen. From all this,
it is clear that racial psychology is not exhausted by the
principles of constitutional psychology, but that at best it
can be illuminated by them in some of its most important
aspects. For race is not resolvable into constitution, nor
constitution into race.
When we come to mental endowment, our first resource,
in studying the characters of races, lies in the reciprocal
judgments and prejudices of peoples, which are embodied
in sayings and traditions handed down through the centuries
and which naturally contain a kernel of truth (otherwise it
would be difficult to explain their psychological origin). We
turn to them, however, only because there is an absence
of more exact statistical or experimental data, and we do
so with all caution. On the other hand the specific gifts
of a race or tribe, lend themselves to more certain fixation,
for we have geographical statistics concerning the birthplaces of genius and the distribution of the outstanding
creations and landmarks of civilisation. As soon as one
begins to investigate these statistics with scientific detachment and without factious race prejudice, they speak clearly
and unambiguously. This is particularly true in the discussion as to the partition of talent between the Nordic
and Alpine races, which lie most clearly in the centre of
the more recent developments of civilisation.
If one seeks to examine the relatively Alpine, and also,
perhaps, more pyknic, peoples of south Germany, he will
find, on closer study, that they divide into a more hypomanic
(gay-hot-tempered) section in the Bavarian part and a more
phlegmatic (comfortable-good-natured) variant in Swabia.
It is not without interest that among the south German
peoples, those with the strongest anthropological admixture
of Nordic blood are counted as the most schizothyme in
temperament: the population of Würtemberg shows, on an
average, in addition to its phlegmatic-good-natured side, a
stronger schizoid infusion than the Bavarians on the one
boundary, and the people of Baden on the other. Seen by
the side of the Bavarians, they make a strange contrast,
by reason of their tenacity, their reserve and unbending
stiffness of manner, and their penchant for integrative,
speculative thought.
Conversely, one often notices that the schizothymic,
Nordic visitor from northern Germany, fails to see the
schizothymic element in the Swabian character; he finds
the local spirit of Swabia emphatically sociable: to him
the cyclothyme side of the south German character is more
readily apparent because it offers the most obvious contrast
to his own strongly-schizothyme nature.
If we pick up the anthropological map showing German
linguistic areas, in which the proportions of Nordic and
Alpine elements in the population are also expressed by
statistical frequency relations between blonds and brunettes,
we find that the population with the greatest percentage
of dark-haired people (i.e. with 15-20 per cent, of brunettes)
is settled in the following territories: the whole of south
Germany (including also Austria and Switzerland) from the
neighbourhood of the Main to the southern extremities.
Strips of dark population stretch out from this area westwards down the Rhine, ending a little below Cologne, and
eastwards into Thuringia and Saxony. These zones of dark
race intermixture follow almost exactly the areas of those
German peoples that are considered to be of ‘ cheerful
disposition ’, i.e. more cyclothymic in temperament, namely
the areas, Rhine-Franconia, Swabia-Alsace, Bavaria-Austria,
and the northward extension into Thuringia-Saxony. Within
these blocks of strongly Alpine population, two sub-groups
can be fairly sharply distinguished. On the one hand stand
the Rhenish-Frankish and the Bavarian-Austrian peoples,
both of which have a relatively hypomanic dash in their
temperamental constitution. That is to say, they are
cheerful in thought, sensual, gay, lively and talkative.
On the other hand stands the Swabian-Alsatian group, which
in Swabia is decidedly phlegmatic, even a little melancholy,
and easy-going, and passes towards Alsace into the sunny
* Sommerweste ’ and the quiet, easy humour depicted by
Mörike, but seldom passes over into lively, hypomanic
forms. The dark race area in Switzerland corresponds to
the cyclothymic middle position, i.e. its people are realistic,
capable, fond of festivity, home-loving and industrious.
We see, too, in the French character, in addition to the
hypomanic foundation, the bourgeois realism which arises
from an element of the cyclothymic middle phase: that
cyclothymic position perhaps comes to fullest expression in
the temperament of the familiar French ‘ rentier We will
not enter at this point into a discussion of the schizothyme
admixture in these peoples. All of them are, indeed, not
purely cyclothymic in temperament, but merely more
cyclothymic than the relatively Nordic people of northwest Germany. That the hypomanic component in the
gay and lively nature of the south German people is derived
from the Alpine racial element, seems a conclusion to which
we are ultimately driven by these facts. In the Rhineland
and Franconia we have to deal with a mixture of Nordic
and Alpine races, but the former can hardly come into
question as the bearer of the hypomanic trait. True, the
Nordic race is not entirely free from cyclothymic components of temperament (especially in its realism), but
in the areas of purest Nordic settlement we find little
trace of hypomanic temperaments ; rather do we find the
people serious, sadly earnest in their attitude to life, and,
in the old epic lays which they produced, positively
gloomy.
Moreover, in the settlement areas of the Alpine race
which lie outside Germany, namely in France (especially
central and south-west), and Italy (mainly upper Italy),
we can perceive the same gay, lively strain (the ' Gallic
temperament ’) which we know to be normally conditioned
by the pyknic-cyclothyme component of the Alpine race.
Yet we must not overlook, in considering the French and
Italian character, the presence of a very considerable
admixture of the Mediterranean race.
The clearest picture of the constitutional temperament
contrast between Nordic and Alpine types can best be
gained by comparing the people of north-west with those of
south-west Germany. In south-east Germany, especially in
the Austrian and Bavarian Alps, the Dinaric race is too
strongly represented to permit that area to be chosen for
purposes of comparison. If one compares the two ' hypomanic ' stocks of Germany—Rhineland-Franconia and
Austria-Bavaria—he will find in the latter, especially as it
verges on the Alps, a growing element of raw strength,
tenacity and stubborn self-will. Since the Nordic race is
relatively very weak here, these characters can only be
attributed to the infusion of Dinaric blood.
We saw that a spreading wave of cyclothymic temperament areas is splashed out around the Alps, and that its
extent is pretty well the same as that of the areas of strongly
Alpine population. Where the Alpine population mixes
with the Mediterranean race, as in southern France and the
southern parts of Italy (which, according to the map of
cephalic indexes, must nevertheless contain a considerable
Alpine percentage), this cyclothymic admixture assumes in
its manifestations, a tone of extremely naive, childish,
carefree sociability and gaiety. It is this group of traits,
together with the definitely Mediterranean tendencies to
cruelty and wild emotionality, which we are accustomed to
speak of as the ‘ southern temperament ’. But in south
and middle Germany as far as the Rhineland, and in central
France, we find very widespread the same characters,
modified a little towards tenacity, seriousness and strength
of will by Nordic admixture. Indeed, whichever direction
we care to follow outwards from the central Alpine zone,
we can perceive that the cyclothyme traits tend to disappear
in precise accordance with the diminution of Alpine blood.
This is clearly as true in proceeding to more Nordic areas
as in moving into Mediterranean zones, and there is every
reason to believe that it would hold for the transition to
Dinaric regions. Nevertheless, the change is most clearly
evident in proceeding to the north, as we have already
described.
It must be especially emphasised that the Mediterranean
race, on the whole, is far less endowed with the cyclothymic
temperament than is the Alpine. There is a widespread
tendency to credit the mentality of the Mediterranean race
with the Alpine hypomanic traits. The Mediterranean race
is physically a small, gracefully-built, medium type. It is
softer in outline, especially in the face, than the Nordic
type, and the nose is shorter and broader. But compared
with the Alpine type the face is narrow and the figure very
slim. Illustrations of the Mediterranean type in text-books of
anthropology always impress one as handsome, neat and wellproportioned ; they lack the individuality and ' character ’
of constitutional physique which is so striking in the Alpine
and Nordic races.
It is as futile to study the psychology of the Mediterranean
race in the Italians and the southern French, who have an
Alpine admixture, as it is to attempt to gather an impression
of Nordic psychology from the people of south Germany.
Rather should one seek out some region in which the
Mediterranean race is relatively pure, such as Spain, or the
large Mediterranean islands, e.g. Corsica. Then one can see
straight away that these people of the purest Mediterranean
regions are much less cyclothymic than those of Italy,
southern France, or some parts of south Germany. Distinctly
non-cyclothymic and even strong schizothymic traits are
evident in these pure Mediterranean peoples. In the history
and civilisation of Spain, there are conspicuous examples of
serious earnestness, often almost of gloom. We see also,
strong tendency to grandiloquence of style, to all that is
aristocratic, solemn and ceremonious. In religion, in place
of the joyful appeal to the senses which characterises the
Catholicism of the Alpine regions (Italy, southern Germany
and France) we find strictness, widely-conceived organisation
and masterly consistency (Jesuit order), traits of dark
fanaticism (Inquisition) and fervent mysticism. Also in its
political relations, this masterful trait is unmistakable;
next to England the greatest colonial expansion among
European nations was made by Spain, even though its
empire rapidly fell to pieces afterwards. This specific
schizothyme group of characters: will to power, religious
earnestness, and that significantly contrasting duality of
characters—warm mystical feeling with cool detachment
in organisation—is possessed by the Spaniard in common
with the Nordic race. There are, in addition, tendencies
to cruelty and to wild, hasty outbursts of passion, which
form the common stigma of all Mediterranean peoples.
Yet we must conclude, that there reside in the temperament
of the Mediterranean man, certain heightened cyclothymic
tendencies, for where the Alpine race mixes with it, as in
Italy and the south of France, the Alpine hypomanic
tendencies are still more marked, whereas when the Alpine
race is blended with Nordic people these tendencies seem
to evaporate.
The Dinaric race, the fourth great race of Europe, is
lacking in colour, psychologically, compared with the others.
This lack of psychological individuality has already been
emphasised by E. Fischer in dealing with the closely-related
Hither Asiatic race. The Dinaric race has never, either in
its pure region of descent, the Balkan mountains, or in the
racial mixtures where it predominates, in the eastern Alps,
produced an independent culture of high standing or any
significant contribution to civilisation. But that does not
amount to saying that the race will not do so in the future.
Clearly, the gay, lively element in the German-Austrian
peoples does not arise from this race, but from the Alpine
race, which carries these traits into all its zones of intermixture, spread in a wide ring round the Alps. Of the
Dinaric race we can only say that it appears but little
defined in its mentality and the direction of its energies,
apart from its, generally admitted, martial courage and
commercial sense. Further it is impossible to go, on account
of the dearth of tangible evidence.
It is especially interesting to note how beautifully the
specific racial areas and zones of intermixture give their
own character to the form of European civilisation within
their borders. They break through the apparently even
surface of culture and bring to expression the predominant
components of temperament in each race. The map of
European religions fits closely on the map of racial distribution. Many psychologists have already remarked that
Protestantism, with its cool, sober abstraction, its lack of
imagery and illustration, and its strong individualism, is
usually localised in the areas where the Nordic race is most
strongly represented: i.e. north Germany, Holland, Scandinavia and England. With the south German Alpine
stocks there is characteristically a separation into two
groups, corresponding to the hypomanic and the phlegmatic
varieties. Neglecting minor territorial discrepancies, one
can say that the hypomanic Alpine type, in Austria, Bavaria,
the Main Valley, the Rhineland and Franconia, has generally
remained Catholic; whilst where the Nordic race has been
blended with the more phlegmatic Alpine variant, as in
Würtemberg and Switzerland, a second centre of Protestantism has been founded. The most direct, naive and
warm variety of Catholicism, with its direct appeal to the
senses, has been most whole-heartedly espoused by the
effervescent type of Alpine variant in France and Italy.
There we begin to approach the true region of the Mediterranean race, in which, however, a very different variety of
Catholicism holds sway. This is the more earnest, fanatical,
mystic, strictly-organised Catholicism of Spain, which, with
its many schizothyme traits, is sharply distinguished from
the cyclothyme Catholicism of the peri-Alpine regions. On
the whole, therefore, a fairly precise religious preference
according to race can be detected. Protestantism is the
religion, firstly, of the predominantly Nordic peoples, and
secondly, of the zones where the Nordic race is slightly
mixed with the more phlegmatic variant of the Alpine
race. Catholicism, however, is the religion of the more
hypomanic Alpine areas and the regions of the Mediterranean
race.
If we pick out on the map of Europe the birth-places of
the greatest geniuses in art and science, and the regions
where our most important cultural assets have arisen (e.g.
architectural inventions), and then superpose this ‘ map of
civilisation ’ on a map of racial distribution, it becomes
strikingly clear that the zones of Nordic-Alpine intermixture
have been of quite disproportionately great importance in
the more recent development of European culture. The
whole zone of Nordic-Alpine intermixture, i.e. the area in
which both races are present in the population in fairly
equal proportions, includes the greater part of France,
Holland, Flanders, the greater part of Germany (especially
the middle and southern kingdoms of German speech,
including the Rhineland, Thuringia and Saxony) and finally,
upper and middle Italy. These racial areas are the accepted
areas of greatest fertility in regard to the development of
European civilisation since the Middle Ages. Around this
Nordic-Alpine central zone, lies a circle of peoples with
many significant, but much less numerous, contributions
to civilisation. This outer ring consists of areas of relatively
pure races, namely, that of the Nordic race in Scandinavia,
the northern strip of Germany and England; also that of
the Mediterranean race in Spain, the Mediterranean islands,
the southern districts of Italy and southern France. Equally
worthy of remark, though as yet little productive of genius,
is the area of Nordic-Mongolian intermixture in the northeast Slav regions, Russia and Poland. On the other hand
the Dinaric-Mongolian intermixture areas in the Balkans
have been astonishingly dead, in any cultural sense. Only
where the Dinaric race flows over into the Nordic-Alpine
zones of fusion, as in Austria, do we find any blooming of
civilisation. Naturally all this holds only for the present
distribution of civilisation and does not justify us in arguing
to the future. In this pretty clear and comprehensive
picture of the racial distribution of civilisation in Europe,
there is only one questionable point; that is, in southern
England, the chief bearer of English culture. Even that
area, however, shows itself on the map as being of distinctly
mixed racial composition; though as yet it is not entirely
clear what racial elements are involved. It is fairly certain
that there has been some fusion with the Mediterranean
race. Günther accepts the contention that, in addition,
there has been a slight Alpine admixture. In many ways
the mixed racial zone of southern England has marked
cultural relationship with the northern parts of the Nordic Alpine intermixture belt and can be considered along with
them.
In any case, one thing is certain; the highest developments of civilisation have so far arisen in those realms of
the Nordic race in which it has become mixed with other,
equally gifted, races. This is as true for the modem Nordic Alpine civilisation as it was for ancient Greece and India.
But of these mixtures, that with the Alpine race has perhaps
been the most successful, and has led to the most varied,
rich and extensive forms of civilisation that have ever
existed. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that the purest
areas of Nordic settlement, such as lower Saxony and Frisia
in Germany, have shown great richness of character and
talent though they have been poor in genius and cultural
productions. These facts were already intuitively perceived
and statistically demonstrated by Reibmayr, without any
inkling of our present information in regard to race and
race differences. There can be no doubt that the highest
culture up to the present time has had its centre never
in Scandinavia, Scotland and the German coast-lands, but
always in the zones of racial intermixture. And the slow
northward advance of culture in Germany since the eighteenth
century has proceeded parallel to the ' de-nordisation ’ of
that part, i.e. the relative increase and infiltration of Alpine
blood into north Germany. This says nothing derogatory
to the value of the Nordic race, which is clearly written in
history, but it speaks against the ideal of pure race, against
a one-sided worship of the Nordic peoples and against
deprecatory caricatures of other European races.
In the Alpine-Nordic belt of intermingling to which we are
referring, practically the whole blossoming of Gothic art ran
its course. It saw, too, the birth of the Renaissance-Baroque
culture, the classical French civilisation of Louis XIV, the
French Enlightenment and the era of Goethe and Beethoven.
But it is possible to distinguish within the whole zone, two
sub-regions, overlapping at their edges. One is a more
northerly and Nordic belt, in which Gothic found its finest
expression ; the other, more southerly and Alpine area, was
the home of the Renaissance-Baroque culture. According
to the temperamental differences corresponding to the
differing racial proportions, the first and outer belt is a
cool, schizothyme zone; the second, inner part, an area
inhabited by warm, more cyclothyme temperaments.
Gothic seemed to choose as its birth-place, and region of
highest fruition, the northern and eastern parts of France
(Normandy to Burgundy). Thence it spread most vigorously
along the related strips on the racial map which run through
north-central France, Flanders, middle and south Germany.
In the more strongly Alpine upper Italy, it scarcely gained
a footing, whilst south-western France, an Alpine-Mediterranean zone of admixture, reacted very weakly to its influence.
In the still more Nordic regions (England, northern Germany,
Scandinavia), it had noteworthy developments, which, however, were really weak and tardy compared with those just
considered. The whole of eastern Europe very quickly lost
the Gothic spirit. Now, compared with Renaissance art,
the spirit of Gothic is much more schizothyme: rigorous,
deeply earnest, metaphysical and ascetic. Its buildings
show that contrast of mystic feeling and coolly calculated
design which is so significant and characteristic of schizothyme psychology.
Renaissance-Baroque civilisation flowered, again with
clear racial affinities, in a belt parallel to that of Gothic
and overlapping it in the middle, but distinctly shifted
towards the south. This strip of racial mingling includes
upper and middle Italy, and may even be said to have
its centre of gravity there, that is, in a strongly Alpine
region. France, south and middle Germany, shared that
culture, but the northern lands showed far less real love
for it than they had shown for Gothic. England and
Scandinavia, especially, remained astonishingly quiescent
in this period of art, at least as far as the plastic arts were
concerned.
The realistic, joyful mood of the Renaissance, with its
entirely worldly, earth-loving, pleasure-seeking, constructive,
artistic nature, had, in comparison with the Gothic spirit,
a more cyclothymic infusion, and for that reason it is,
according to the geographical distribution of race, a phenomenon of the Alpine areas. It may be true that a number
of isolated Nordic individuals, even with such marked
schizothymic traits as Michelangelo, appear to lead the
period with their masterly performances, but it must be
remembered that they lived in a flood of life, the mood of
which was entirely different from that of Gothic regions.
So the Renaissance-Baroque spread its monuments most
thickly over the more Alpine parts of the areas of intermixture, i.e. in Italy, France, south and central Germany.
The specific mood and spirit of the Renaissance found its
most favourable soil in the great city republics of upper
Italy and southern Germany: Florence, Venice, Nürnberg,
Augsburg, which overflowed with luxury, power, revelry
and artistic culture, and surrounded the Alps like a
blossoming garland.
So far, we have intentionally refrained from emphasising
the part played by the Nordic population elements in Italy
during the Renaissance civilisation. That part has already
been amplified sufficiently by other writers. Frequently,
with biassed intentions, it has been acclaimed the most
important single factor in the rise of Renaissance culture.
True, the leading type of the Renaissance is the nearest
blood relative of the Scottish noble, Macbeth, or the heroes
of the Nibelungenlied. Ruthless, individualistic lust for
power, the murder of princes, family strife, fratricide, and
a bloody rending of their own flesh and blood among the
noblest families—this is the story of the Nordic nobility.
The ‘ Blond beast ’—that is one face of the Nordic type,
from Scotland to Italy. Its other face, expressing the
sensitive, metaphysical, idealistic spirit, carried forward the
more northerly Gothic atmosphere from the early Renaissance
until far into the mature years of that period. It is not
these Nordic activities which distinguish so sharply the
spirit of the Renaissance from the Gothic culture, but rather
those others of which we have spoken. With the rise of
the Renaissance movement, and still more completely with
its passage into the Baroque period, there came a revolution
in the ideal of physical beauty. The fragile, delicate, narrow
figures of Gothic and early Renaissance art began to take
on a rounded form ; and painters (Palma, Vecchio, Rubens)
finally came to revel as much in robust corpulency as they
had previously done in slim, stylistic transparency of flesh.
The more schizothyme the mood of the time might be, the
more did it incline to an asthenic ideal of bodily beauty.
The more cyclothyme it became, the more that ideal moved
towards the pyknic physique. If this change in artistic
and general mood in the life of the times were an act of
the Nordic race, it is difficult to see why the artistic epoch
found such a small echo in the more purely Nordic nations.
We find the view of Sommer much more plausible—that
the amazing burst of genius in the Italian Renaissance is
traceable to a mixture of bloods, which had been taking
place in the preceding period, between the Germanic
military aristocracy and the more successful city families
risen from the artistically-gifted, native population. This
process is very clearly demonstrable in Florence. We have,
in fact, simply another example of Alpine-Nordic crossing.
From portraits, and the general information regarding the
individual geniuses of the Renaissance which has been
handed down to us, it does seem likely that the Nordic
population provided a good part of the organising energy
and leadership which maintained and made possible the
intellectual movement. But this Nordic population must
already have been enriched considerably by Alpine blood,
otherwise it is quite impossible to explain the wholesale
outbreak of talent in music and painting during the
Renaissance-Baroque period, for it is precisely in these
gifts that the purely Nordic areas are weak and the Alpine
intermixture zones outstandingly eminent. And it is against
all anthropological experience, to suppose that the two
races of northern and upper Italy, after living side by side
for centuries, should still be found pure in type at the time
of the Renaissance.
We see then, quite clearly, that this new European growth
of civilisation was determined in its development, not by any
community of language, nor by any conditions of commerce
and traffic, but mainly by the nature of the racial zones.
The further development of civilisation in Europe is also
bound up in the first degree with that part of Europe where
the Nordic and Alpine races blend. From the Middle Ages
the zone of highest cultural fruition has slowly broadened
itself towards the north, without any obvious relation to
nationality, as a band stretching roughly from west to
east and delimiting the zone of purest Nordic population.
It touched England early, which forthwith began to blossom,
in the Middle Ages, and is still, to-day, stepping ever more
powerfully to the fore. Then it met the German North,
the Baltic provinces and Scandinavia, which now go hand
in hand with the older regions of culture and show increasing
intellectual brilliance, as can be seen from statistics on the
birth-places of genius. This cultural development can well
be regarded as another aspect of the biological process of
‘ de-nordisation ’ which is apparently going on in Europe.
' De-nordisation ’ can be regarded as a slow northward
extension of the line at which the Nordic race blends with
other, usually Alpine, races. This northward extension of
the Nordic-Alpine intermixture zone, which is completing
itself before our eyes, can be a matter for congratulation,
from the standpoint of civilisation, only in so far as it
signifies the hybridisation of equally gifted races, both of
which are maintaining their original strength.
Beside this northward extension of the Nordic-Alpine
zone of highly-developed civilisation, we encounter, in recent
years, the first fruits of the Nordic-Mongolian hybridisation
in Russia. As that civilisation is still in its very beginnings,
it is impossible to estimate the limits of its ultimate
intellectual advance.
In recent European cultural developments it is possible
to distinguish once more, the two zones in the Nordic
Alpine intermixture belt, namely, the cooler, i.e. relatively
Nordic and schizothyme, part and the warmer, relatively
Alpine and cyclothyme belt.
At present the centre of gravity for political talent and
commercial-technical development lies in the zone of cooler
temperament (England, north Germany and north America
—which is, of course, largely Nordic). On the other hand,
the centre of greatest artistic culture lies now, as in former
times, in the warmer, more Alpine zone (south and central
Germany, upper and middle Italy, and France), as statistics
show. Moreover, that artistic culture is of a kind appealing
directly to the senses, objective, demanding an immediate
emotional response and a warmth of temperament. Between
these two extreme wings, stand the more thoughtful,
rationalistic forms of culture, expressed mainly in the
activities of poets and philosophers. It is true that these
thrive in both zones, from England and north Germany
southwards to central Italy, but there are certain significant
differences between the parts. The schizothyme members
of this group, namely the philosophers and tragic dramatists,
are essentially more strongly represented in the northern
and middle racial belts, whilst towards the south, in Italy
and among the more cyclothyme German stocks, they fade
out rapidly. Locke, Hume, Descartes, Kant, Herder,
Herbart and Schopenhauer derived from the northern zone,
as did also Shakespeare, Corneille, Voltaire, Kleist and
Hebbel. Conversely, the classical countries of art and music
—Italy and the more hypomanic peoples of south Germany
—show only sporadic, isolated cases of philosophers (G.
Bruno) and geniuses of tragic drama (Grillparzer).
This constitutional difference of endowment between the
more Nordic and the more Alpine sections of the zone of
intermixture, is as tangible in the statistical presentation
of the ancestry of geniuses of recent times as it is in the
geographical distribution of Gothic and Renaissance-Baroque
culture. '
Now each of these zones has an anomalous portion,
geographically small but culturally important. Within the
southern zone, the Swabian area is different from the rest
not only in religion, but in many other manifestations,
notably its greater production of philosophers and dramatic
geniuses, and its lesser talent in music. It clearly belongs
more to the zone of cooler temperament. Conversely,
within the Nordic belt, the Netherlands-Flanders area stands
out as a small island of eminent talent in painting. Yet,
in both cases, the anomalousness concerns only a part of
the total endowments, for the Swabian area shares with the
rest of the Alpine zone an unusual talent in painting and
architecture, whilst Holland clearly belongs to the cooler
zone in its Protestant religion and political disposition.
In both areas one might have deduced this partial
anomalousness from the racial map. Würtemberg, and
especially the old Würtemberg Protestant area around the
Neckar, whence most of the philosophers and poets in
question are derived, has a strong Nordic ingredient. This
intrusion into the valleys of the Main and Neckar of Nordic
blood (Günther) corresponds to the old path of migration of
the Germanic tribes, and can be readily seen, for example,
in the cephalic indexes on the map of Deniker and Fischer.
The more Nordic area thus revealed, appears as a narrow,
elongated wedge, penetrating along the Main and Neckar
valleys far into the Alpine regions. Similarly there seems
to be a strongly Alpine racial island in the Netherlands.
I quote Günther : “ The downward gradient for the Nordic
race, i.e. its decline from racial purity, is much more rapid
in passing from the north to the south of Holland than in
the corresponding transition in Germany. We are inclined,
in Germany, to regard Holland as being much more Nordic
than it really is.” Günther then proceeds to enumerate a
series of islands of Alpine population, a good number of
which lie right in the middle of the Netherlands area and
are “ in view of the northerly position of Holland, quite
exceptional.” To these smaller areas we must add the large,
Alpine Walloon region in Belgium, which treads closely
upon them.
It is remarkable, and perhaps of great importance for
racial theory, that we find three places within German speaking territory at which there is an incredibly disproportionate concentration of genius. Mainly they are places
where a special type of genius occurs frequently in a very
limited area; where, statistically expressed, there is exceptional density of genius. These three regions are:
Saxony (with the parts of Thuringia and Silesia which
border on it), Swabia and the Netherlands. In every case
these will be found to be spots where different racial zones
pass immediately, and with exceptional abruptness, one
into the other. Saxony lies hard between densely Alpine
Bohemia and the strongly Nordic provinces of Prussia.
The Netherlands show, according to Günther, a rapid
‘ decline from purity ’ of the Nordic race ; and in Würtemberg the Nordic wedge of the Neckar projects sharply into
an Alpine region. Thus it is possible to consider this display
of genius as a product of blood mixture, similar to that
which occurred in the Italian Renaissance or in ancient
Greece by intermarriage of the sharply distinguished Nordic
nobility with a native population of different racial origin.
In both of the latter cases the blossoming of genius apparently
took place simultaneously with a break-up of social classes,
and the collapse of social stratification was virtually a
disruption of racial exclusiveness. Here we are layingemphasis not only, with Sommer and Reibmayr, on the
rdle of racial fusion as the soil of genius, but also on the
sharpness of the distinction between the fusing elements
and on the effect of the social situation in which intermarriage takes place.
Within the Nordic-Alpine intermixture zone we frequently
find special zones which are of some interest because they
represent concentrated talent developing in some particular
direction. These special zones show, in the first place, a
development of the general gifts of the racial endowment;
but they also evidence the effects of national and family
inbreeding. We find, for example, that the greater part
of creative musical talent in Germany has arisen in that
circumscribed stock of population which runs in a semicircle round the central Bohemian core of the Alpine race
and stretches thence towards the Alps. The main body of
German musical genius comes from Saxony-Thuringia (Bach,
Handel, Schumann, Richard Wagner), north-eastern Bavaria
(Gluck, Reger) and Austria (Haydn, Mozart, Schubert,
Weber, Liszt, Bruckner, Hugo Wolf). For musical genius,
i.e. the capacity to express spiritual profundities in music,
descent from the Alpine race has clearly, up to the present,
been the decisive factor. The history of music in Europe
has been made, in its essentials, solely by the three nations
with a strong Alpine component: Germany, Italy and
France. And among these it is the regions with the softer,
hypomanic temperament which hold the first place. Here
stand Italy, Austria and Saxony: the musical culture
produced by them in the last few centuries is a unique
creation among all peoples and through all times. In other
nations and races musical endowment is widespread and
freely distributed, but nowhere up to the present has there
been that soaring, monumental growth of musical masterpieces which has occurred in the regions where the Alpine
racial ingredients predominate. That Alpine racial origin
presents the most important factor in musical talent is
proved further by the fact that zones occupied by pure
Nordic or pure Mediterranean people (Spain) fall furthest
of all behind the Alpine admixture areas we have considered.
Many Nordic race areas, such as England and the northwest German provinces, are notorious for their lack of
musical productivity (Frisia non cantat). From such expressive geographical quantitative proofs it must be accepted
that a certain dash of Alpine blood is always present in
musical geniuses of the Alpine-Nordic zone, even if the
physical characteristics of this race are sometimes difficult
to detect in individual cases.
Poetic-philosophical endowment is found in Germany in
two centres of great density: Saxony (with its Thuringian
and Silesian neighbouring parts) and Würtemberg. To the
first place belong, among others, Luther, Leibnitz, Lessing,
Eichendorff, Fichte, Schleiermacher, Otto Ludwig, and
Nietzsche; to the latter, Wieland, Schiller, Hölderlin,
Uhland, Mörike, Hegel and Schelling. In poetic achievements the Alsace-Lorraine area also plays a part, with
Keller, Meyer and Gotthelf. In addition to the really
great names, there are many smaller names in the history
of literature thickly scattered in both these areas. Saxony,
in consequence of the coincidence of musical with poeticphilosophic talent, is quite the richest area in genius in all
Germany. Most of the remaining names in this group of
talented men come from the northern strip of Germany,
but they are there more thinly distributed and sporadically
arranged, e.g. Klopstock, Kant, Herder, Herbart, Schopenhauer, Kleist, Hebbel, Droste-Hülshoff, Storm and Fontane.
On the other hand the more hypomanic stocks of the Alpine
zone, namely, those in Austria, Bavaria, and Franconia
(around the Rhine and the Main), make a very weak contribution to this field of talent. In the whole vast area
the only relief is found in the two great names of Goethe
and Grillparzer, of whom the first has strong genealogical
relations with the people of Thuringia-Saxony and Wiirtemberg. But then, there is compensation for this when one
thinks that the greatest focus of musical genius lies in Austria
and of plastic art in Franconia. In the realm of Germanic
speech, the plastic and graphic arts concentrate themselves
mostly in the Netherlands and Franconia (Dürer, Grünewald,
Cranach, Peter Vischer, Riemenschneider, Feuerbach). In
the second rank come the Austro-Bavarian (Leibl, Lenbach,
Spitzweg, Schwind) and Swabian-Alsatian areas (famous for
its schools of painting and architecture from the Middle
Ages to the Baroque period, and for the names of Holbein,
Böcklin and Thoma). At this point we encounter another
fact of great racial significance. Just as the Nordic Neckar
region clearly held the lead in the southern regions for
poetic-philosophic talent, so it relinquishes it to the Alpine
Swabian-Alsatian area where the plastic arts are concerned.
We need only mention Ulm, Augsburg, Vorarlberg (Baroque),
Switzerland and the southern Black Forest region. Old
Würtemberg has produced neither a famous painter nor a
great musician.
Military and political talent of the old stamp we find
most strongly concentrated in the nobility, which, in all
nations of the Nordic-Alpine zone, is predominantly Nordic.
The centre of gravity in these activities has moved somewhat
to the north since the Middle Ages, so that to-day we find
the greatest political-military endowment, without a doubt,
in England, north Germany and France. On the whole,
ability in this direction declines, in all nations in the racial
fusion zone, as we pass from north to south, a fact which
clearly demonstrates the relation of such talent to the
Nordic race. However, ' military-political ’ talent is no
unified psychological entity. Modem politics and economics
differ essentially in their methods and goals from the politics
of the old nobility. In opposition to the stiff and unalterable
ideology of the old school, they demand leaders with more
intellectual elasticity, subtle intuition, broad-minded spirit
and penetrating, realistic insight. In short, strong hypomanic dispositional factors are required, such as the Nordic
race only sparingly possesses, but which, together with the
necessary hardness and consistency, can be found in many
of the complicated Nordic alloys with Alpine elements.
Here also, then, the admixture of alien blood, acts as a
desirable ferment, bringing out the specific racial talents,
whereas relatively pure races, after long inbreeding, manifestly acquire a certain petrifaction of their talents, a certain
narrowness and uselessness—as Reibmayr has already
recognised. Hence the political centre of gravity among
the Nordic peoples does not lie in the parts of greatest
racial purity. In Great Britain, for example, it lies, not in
Scotland, but in southern England. Within the German
Empire it lies, not in the north-west comer, but in the
more easterly parts : Prussia. We can probably bring into
line here, as the converse analogous case, the fact that the
peak of musical talent does not lie in the purest Alpine race
centre in Bohemia, but round the periphery of that region.
From these comparisons of the geographical distribution
of genius, we obtain on most points, a decidedly clear picture
of the intellectual dispositions of the Nordic and Alpine
races. Moreover it has proved to be a picture which remains
true whether we approach it from one side or the other.
To one race belongs the centre of gravity in philosophy and
drama ; to the other, with its emphatic artistic temperament,
has been given the greater endowment in music and the
plastic arts. Yet, as far as the facts go, we are only able to
say: within the zone of racial admixture, this part has, in
the past, made such and such contributions, and that part
has manifested other endowments. We cannot assert that
the pure races would have attained such levels, or even
have proceeded in such directions, separately. Indeed, we
can with greater probability suppose that the racial fusion,
with its fermentative and enriching effects, played an
essential part in those developments. We must adopt this
supposition because the region of racial intermixture shows
a much stronger production of genius than the geographical
zones of relatively pure race; and again because the most
outstanding individual geniuses are rarely pure race types
and do not always correspond to the racial type of their area.
Into the question of the rise of ‘ sub-races ’ by continued
inbreeding within established areas of political and linguistic
unity, with its alleged production of national and regional
types, we cannot enter in any detail. But it seems possible
to suppose that the nations formed by Nordic-Alpine fusion,
just like the children of corresponding marriages, are distinctly new individuals, distinguished not merely by the
percentage proportions of intermixture, but by a unique
combination and selection of the parental race characteristics, which gives them an individual stamp.
The mixture of Nordic and Alpine races has provided
us with an especially clear example of the way in which
the hybridisation of partly dissimilar races, by compensating
and supporting the characters of each component, can give
rise to a complete and vital civilisation, i.e. to a series of
populations constantly breeding a sufficiency of men of
genius. The example is also the only one concerning which
a sufficiently sound and comprehensive amount of statistical
material, in the form of anthropological and historical facts,
is available as a basis for really scientific judgments. One
may assume, with some probability, that the rise of lofty
civilisations, blossoming with genius, at other times and in
other races and nations, was caused by a similar biological
process of cross-breeding. For in individual human biology
too, suitable cross-breeding gives rise to richly-developed
‘ hybrids ’ who easily outgrow the parental types from which
they have sprung. The breeding of genius is thus assimilated
to the same process which, in specialist biology, is known
as the ‘ luxuriation ’ of hybrids. Hence highly-developed
civilisations are usually produced within a definite time
interval after the migrations of peoples and the invasions of
conquering tribes which have gradually mixed themselves
with the native populations.
From this observation arises very frequently the erroneous
conclusion that the immigrating or invading race, as such,
has brought genius with it. Such a conclusion plays an
important part in the train of reasoning which leads to the
apotheosis of the Nordic race and to its present lofty position
in popular estimation. Such an error can be easily avoided
if one takes the trouble to study the same race in its purest
possible condition, in its original home, where it will be
found in vigorous, industrious, but narrow and unenterprising pursuit of old occupations, agricultural customs and
traditions, just like any other capable race. And even a
great restlessness, manifested in migration and conquest,
can only be regarded as a normal demonstration of vitality
and valour, such as occurs in all healthy and unexhausted
tribes among the most varied races. The masterful characters
of a conquering people can be observed quite as easily in
the history of the Mongolian, Indian and Arabian peoples
as in the old Teutons. Tribes and peoples that have been
constantly engaged in migration and conquest are not
necessarily ' superior and heroic ’ peoples, but mainly, and
in the first place, tribes situated in northern and desert
lands, i.e. poor, climatically-unbearable, sterile habitats,
which drive them ceaselessly into efforts to break through
into rich, settled, civilised areas. Neither is it right to call
the invading people the ' superior ’ people and the indigenous
population the ' slave race Romantic, sounding epithets
of that kind should be strenuously avoided in such a difficult
and complex subject. Instead, one must first recognise that
the outcome of any of these attempts at conquest is solely
dependent upon the degree of ripeness at which the civilisation of the attacked people stands. And this life-phase
of a cultural community has nothing whatever to do with
the vigour and capability of the native race which supports
it, as Spengler has already very beautifully shown. If the
civilisation of the established peoples happens to be just
at its period of most powerful development, the attackers
will be repulsed and annihilated, without reference to
whether they are Nordic (Celts, Teutons) or Mongolian in
race. But should they fall upon a decaying civilisation,
then the assault will succeed—and a racial fusion will
supervene, which, granted a favourable degree of comparability and fitness in the qualities of the two races, will lead
to a new civilisation and a renewed production of genius.
And that blossoming will take place, not in the original
home of the invading people, but away in the conquered
country, where hybridisation is occurring.
From this it is an easy step to the supposition that the
natural law which appears to hold in regard to the rise and
fall of great civilisations, and which has been so fully
expounded by Spengler, is based biologically on the alternation of inbreeding and cross-breeding and that this conditions
many of the manifestations appearing in the social life of
classes, nations and races. But notice that both in the
examples and in the general discussion we have been
referring to a pair of thoroughly inbred races as the units
of fusion, i.e. stocks which through long residence in a given
area, accompanied by intermarriage of blood relatives, have
each attained to a firmly impressed hereditary type, characterised by definite groups of physical and mental peculiarities.
Moreover, the degree of similarity and difference between
the peoples has been just about the same as that which is
normally recognised as necessary for the production of
vigorous hybrids in animals and plants. Reibmayr has
already made it quite clear that whereas the crossing of
talented, inbred stocks may lead to genius, the intermarriage of unselected currents of population, coming
together by chance, as happens to a considerable extent in
big, cosmopolitan cities, never does so, but leads in the
opposite direction (‘blood chaos ’). Metropoli require men
of genius, but they do not themselves produce them, as can
be easily proved by statistics.
Hybridisation can come to pass through peaceful changes
or through warlike invasion, through the breaking-down of
impenetrable class walls and from a number of similar social
processes. In a definite time after such mixture of bloods,
there appears a strong crop of genius, and therewith a
period of advanced civilisation, which lasts just as long as
the basic biological effects persist. The ' dying-out ’ of a
lofty culture may result from one of two biological processes.
In the first place, the propagation of such a civilised community may continue without any external hindrance.
Then there will enter again, after the exhaustion of the
spiritual ferment due to hybridisation, a period of stable
inbreeding, and therewith a steady national existence
accompanied by a certain stiffening and fixity (Chinese
type). In the second contingency, the instincts of propagation may become impaired by the complexity of civilisation.
A rapid depopulation of the best elements will then lead to
a catastrophic collapse (Late Roman Empire type). In both
cases there remains the biological possibility of calling forth
a new culture and a new dawn of genius by causing the
original, resident race to blend with another, suitably chosen,
stock. Theoretically this process could be repeated without
limit. Long-lived ancient civilisations, such as those of
Egypt and Assyria-Babylon, seem to have owed their
constantly renewed vitality within the same environment,
to repeated cross-breedings of the kind described. This
theoretically-unlimited capacity of resuscitation possessed
by the culture of any country, rests in the end upon the
astonishingly tenacious life of the original native race, which,
within the short span of time occupied by historical eras,
seems to have neither youth nor age. It goes on growing
as does the simple grass and herbage of the country-side,
untroubled by the coming and going of those magnificent
hybrid garden flowers—the men of genius, the great city
civilisations, the political powers—which have arisen by
interbreeding with them.
For that reason it is not sound to compare the life-course
of a civilisation with the birth, growth and death of a single
individual. Individuality as a guiding principle is being
carried too far if it leads anyone to think of any particular
culture period as something of unique value, beyond comparison and incapable of being repeated. The civilisation
of the Italian Renaissance is something different from the
civilisation of antiquity, but it is only partially and conditionally different. A new hybridisation of the same native
race produced it; an element of the same attitude to life
linked them together; and they possessed a common store
of intellectual riches and spiritual traditions. Perhaps, from
the standpoint of remote peoples and times, the GraecoRoman culture, modem civilisation, and the blossomings
and fadings of civilisation that may stretch through the
next millennium, will all appear as a single, self-contained
cultural unit. But if our principles are true, what of the
Peruvian civilisation and ancient inhabitants of Mexico ?
Possibly the ancient Indian population will continue to grow,
as it has done, in the old places, until no drop of blood from
white immigrants is any longer discernible. But on the
other hand they may form with those immigrants a race of
vigorous hybrids, who will bring forth a rich Inca civilisation,
different from and yet related, as the Renaissance was to
antiquity, to the intellectual spirit and racial mood of the
ancient culture. Who knows when civilisation may begin
to flower again vigorously in the deserts of Babylon or
remote Arabia, in Egypt or China ? It blossoms again and
perhaps yet again in the ancient places—who knows ? And
what is there really within such apparently great perspectives
as ‘ Western Civilisation * and ' Decline ’ ? Life has a vast
stride and knows nothing of our tiny historical epochs, our
separate civilisations and our tiny individualities.' Above
all, it pays no attention, in the great things, to any ‘ I
Life blooms and withers and blooms again, and the goal of
this blossoming and fading—we do not know. There may
still be hundreds of hybrid blooms waiting to spring from
us through the centuries, each different from and yet similar
to, the others. The West has still countless civilisations and
men of genius to hope for and expect in its decline—if it
believes that civilisation and genius are things worthy of
hope and expectation.
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