ARTHUR DE GOBINEAU, AN ESSAY ON THE INEQUALITY OF
1Primary Source 13.1ARTHUR DE GOBINEAU, AN ESSAY ON THE INEQUALITY OF THE HUMANRACES (1853-55)1Arthur de Gobineau (1816–82), a French man of letters, formulated an early theory aboutrace, which he propounded as “scientific,” but like all such theories was in fact pseudoscientific. He also first posited the superiority of the “Aryan” people, an idea later taken up bythe Nazis to justify their goal of world domination. According to de Gobineau, humansexperience two major impulses in their collective development: attraction and repulsion.Those communities governed by attraction toward other groups gain strength throughmixing. Yet most peoples tended historically to obey repulsion by intermarrying only withintheir group. The white Indo-European race, he asserted, was the first in world history tomingle widely with various peoples, thus giving birth to civilization. De Gobineau then wenton to argue that further merging with other races and peoples would cause (and indeed wasalready causing) the downfall of Western civilization.The passage below, which is excerpted from his major work on the race question, AnEssay on the Inequality of the Human Races, mainly focuses on the superiority of the Aryanrace, although it also discusses the “yellow” race and the “black” race. Be advised that the textis deeply offensive and in many respects preposterous. Yet de Gobineau’s ideas had powerfuland often miserable historical effects.For a link to the text, click here.CHAPTER XVIRECAPITULATION; THE RESPECTIVE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE THREE GREATRACES; THE SUPERIORITY OF THE WHITE TYPE, AND, WITHIN THIS TYPE, OF THEARYAN FAMILYI have shown the unique place in the organic world occupied by the human species, theprofound physical, as well as moral, differences separating it from all other kinds of livingcreatures. Considering it by itself, I have been able to distinguish, on physiological groundsalone, three great and clearly marked types, the black, the yellow, and the white. Howeveruncertain the aims of physiology may be, however meagre its resources, however defectiveits methods, it can proceed thus far with absolute certainty.The negroid variety is the lowest, and stands at the foot of the ladder. The animalcharacter, that appears in the shape of the pelvis, is stamped on the negro from birth, andforeshadows his destiny. His intellect will always move within a very narrow circle. He isnot however a mere brute, for behind his low receding brow, in the middle of his skull, wecan see signs of a powerful energy, however crude its objects. If his mental faculties are dullor even non-existent, he often has an intensity of desire, and so of will, which may be calledArthur de Gobineau, The Inequality of Human Races. trans. Adrian Collins (London: Heinemann, 1915), 205–212.1
2terrible. Many of his senses, especially taste and smell, are developed to an extent unknownto the other two races.The very strength of his sensations is the most striking proof of his inferiority. Allfood is good in his eyes, nothing disgusts or repels him. What he desires is to eat, to eatfuriously, and to excess; no carrion2 is too revolting to be swallowed by him. It is the samewith odours; his inordinate desires are satisfied with all, however coarse or even horrible.To these qualities may be added an instability and capriciousness 3 of feeling, that cannot betied down to any single object, and which, so far as he is concerned, do away with alldistinctions of good and evil. We might even say that the violence with which he pursuesthe object that has aroused his senses and inflamed his desires is a guarantee of the desiresbeing soon satisfied and the object forgotten. Finally, he is equally careless of his own lifeand that of others: he kills willingly, for the sake of killing; and this human machine, inwhom it is so easy to arouse emotion, shows, in face of suffering, either a monstrousindifference or a cowardice that seeks a voluntary refuge in death.The yellow race is the exact opposite of this type. The skull points forward, notbackward. The forehead is wide and bony, often high and projecting. The shape of the faceis triangular, the nose and chin showing none of the coarse protuberances that mark thenegro. There is further a general proneness to obesity, which, though not confined to theyellow type, is found there more frequently than in the others. The yellow man has littlephysical energy, and is inclined to apathy; he commits none of the strange excesses socommon among negroes. His desires are feeble, his will-power rather obstinate thanviolent; his longing for material pleasures, though constant, is kept within bounds. A rareglutton4 by nature, he shows far more discrimination in his choice of food. He tends tomediocrity in everything; he understands easily enough anything not too deep or sublime.He has a love of utility and a respect for order, and knows the value of a certain amount offreedom. He is practical, in the narrowest sense of the word. He does not dream ortheorize; he invents little, but can appreciate and take over what is useful to him. His wholedesire is to live in the easiest and most comfortable way possible. The yellow races are thusclearly superior to the black. Every founder of a civilization would wish the backbone of hissociety, his middle class, to consist of such men. But no civilized society could be created bythem; they could not supply its nerve-force, or set in motion the springs of beauty andaction.We come now to the white peoples. These are gifted with reflective energy, or ratherwith an energetic intelligence. They have a feeling for utility, but in a sense far wider andhigher, more courageous and ideal, than the yellow races; a perseverance that takesaccount of obstacles and ultimately finds a means of overcoming them; a greater physicalpower, an extraordinary instinct for order, not merely as a guarantee of peace andtranquility, but as an indispensable means of self-preservation. At the same time, they havea remarkable, and even extreme, love of liberty, and are openly hostile to the formalismunder which the Chinese are glad to vegetate, as well as to the strict despotism which is theonly way of governing the negro.The deceased and decomposing carcass of an animal.Unpredictable and impulsive in nature.4 A greedy eater.23
3The white races are, further, distinguished by an extraordinary attachment to life.They know better how to use it, and so, as it would seem, set a greater price on it; both intheir own persons and those of others, they are more sparing of life. When they are cruel,they are conscious of their cruelty; it is very doubtful whether such a consciousness existsin the negro. At the same time, they have discovered reasons why they should surrenderthis busy life of theirs, that is so precious to them. The principal motive is honour, whichunder various names has played an enormous part in the ideas of the race from thebeginning. I need hardly add that the word honour, together with all the civilizinginfluences connoted by it, is unknown to both the yellow and the black man.On the other hand, the immense superiority of the white peoples in the whole fieldof the intellect is balanced by an inferiority in the intensity of their sensations. In the worldof the senses, the white man is far less gifted than the others, and so is less tempted andless absorbed by considerations of the body, although in physical structure he is far themost vigorous.Such are the three constituent elements of the human race. I call them secondarytypes, as I think myself obliged to omit all discussion of the Adamite5 man. From thecombination, by intermarriage, of the varieties of these types come the tertiary groups. Thequaternary formations are produced by the union of one of these tertiary types, or of apure-blooded tribe, with another group taken from one of the two foreign species.Below these categories others have appeared—and still appear. Some of these arevery strongly characterized, and form new and distinct points of departure, coming as theydo from races that have been completely fused. Others are incomplete, and ill-ordered, and,one might even say, anti-social, since their elements, being too numerous, too disparate, ortoo barbarous, have had neither the time nor the opportunity for combining to any fruitfulpurpose. No limits, except the horror excited by the possibility of infinite intermixture, canbe assigned to the number of these hybrid and chequered races that make up the whole ofmankind.It would be unjust to assert that every mixture is bad and harmful. If the three greattypes had remained strictly separate, the supremacy would no doubt have always been inthe hands of the finest of the white races, and the yellow and black varieties would havecrawled forever at the feet of the lowest of the whites. Such a state is so far ideal, since ithas never been beheld in history; and we can imagine it only by recognizing the undisputedsuperiority of those groups of the white races which have remained the purest.It would not have been all gain. The superiority of the white race would have beenclearly shown, but it would have been bought at the price of certain advantages which havefollowed the mixture of blood. Although these are far from counterbalancing the defectsthey have brought in their train, yet they are sometimes to be commended. Artistic genius,which is equally foreign to each of the three great types, arose only after, the intermarriageof white and black. Again, in the Malayan6 variety, a human family was produced from theyellow and black races that had more intelligence than either of its ancestors. Finally, fromthe union of white and yellow, certain intermediary peoples have sprung, who are superiorto the purely Finnish tribes as well as to the negroes.56The nature of humanity at the time of the human creation (that is, of Adam and Eve).Those inhabiting the Malayan Peninsula in Southeast Asia.
4I do not deny that these are good results. The world of art and great literature thatcomes from the mixture of blood, the improvement and ennoblement of inferior race—allthese are wonders for which we must needs be thankful. The small have been raised.Unfortunately, the great have been lowered by the same process; and this is an evil thatnothing can balance or repair. Since I am putting together the advantages of racialmixtures, I will also add that to them is due the refinement of manners and beliefs, andespecially the tempering of passion and desire. But these are merely transitory benefits,and if I recognize that the mulatto,7 who may become a lawyer, a doctor, or a business man,is worth more than his negro grandfather, who was absolutely savage, and fit for nothing, Imust also confess that the Brahmans 8 of primitive India, the heroes of the Iliad9 and theShahnameh,10 the warriors of Scandinavia—the glorious shades of noble races that havedisappeared—give us a higher and more brilliant idea of humanity, and were more active,intelligent, and trusty instruments of civilization and grandeur than the peoples, hybrid ahundred times over, of the present day. And the blood even of these was no longer pure.However it has come about, the human races, as we find them in history, arecomplex; and one of the chief consequences has been to throw into disorder most of theprimitive characteristics of each type. The good as well as the bad qualities are seen todiminish in intensity with repeated intermixture of blood; but they also scatter andseparate off from each other, and are often mutually opposed. The white race originallypossessed the monopoly of beauty, intelligence, and strength. By its union with othervarieties, hybrids were created, which were beautiful without strength, strong withoutintelligence, or, if intelligent, both weak and ugly. Further, when the quantity of white bloodwas increased to an indefinite amount by successive infusions, and not by a singleadmixture, it no longer carried with it its natural advantages, and often merely increasedthe confusion already existing in the racial elements. Its strength, in fact, seemed to be itsonly remaining quality, and even its strength served only to promote disorder. Theapparent anomaly is easily explained. Each stage of a perfect mixture produces a new typefrom diverse elements, and develops special faculties. As soon as further elements areadded, the vast difficulty of harmonizing the whole creates a state of anarchy. The morethis increases, the more do even the best and richest of the new contributions diminish invalue, and by their mere presence add fuel to an evil which they cannot abate. If mixtures ofblood are, to a certain extent, beneficial to the mass of mankind, if they raise and ennoble it,this is merely at the expense of mankind itself, which is stunted, abased, enervated,11 andhumiliated in the persons of its noblest sons. Even if we admit that it is better to turn amyriad of degraded beings into mediocre men than to preserve the race of princes whoseblood is adulterated and impoverished by being made to suffer this dishonorable change,yet there is still the unfortunate fact that the change does not stop here; for when themediocre men are once created at the expense of the greater, they combine with othermediocrities, and from such unions, which grow ever more and more degraded, is born aA person born to one white parent and one black parent.Brahmins were the traditional Hindu social and cultural elite.9 An ancient Greek epic poem written by Homer, who lived in the eighth century B.C.10 A Persian epic poem written by Ferdowsi (940–1020A.D.).11 To cause someone to feel weakened.78
5confusion which, like that of Babel, 12 ends in utter impotence, and leads societies down tothe abyss of nothingness whence no power on earth can rescue them.Such is the lesson of history. It shows us that all civilizations derive from the whiterace, that none can exist without its help, and that a society is great and brilliant only so faras it preserves the blood of the noble group that created it, provided that this group itselfbelongs to the most illustrious branch of our species.Of the multitude of peoples which live or have lived on the earth, ten alone haverisen to the position of complete societies. The remainder have gravitated round thesemore or less independently, like planets round their suns. If there is any element of life inthese ten civilizations that is not due to the impulse of the white races, any seed of deaththat does not come from the inferior stocks that mingled with them, then the whole theoryon which this book rests is false. On the other hand, if the facts are as I say, then we have anirrefragable13 proof of the nobility of our own species. Only the actual details can set thefinal seal of truth on my system, and they alone can show with sufficient exactness the fullimplications of my main thesis, that peoples degenerate only in consequence of the variousadmixtures of blood which they undergo; that their degeneration corresponds exactly tothe quantity and quality of the new blood, and that the rudest possible shock to the vitalityof a civilization is given when the ruling elements in a society and those developed by racialchange have become so numerous that they are clearly moving away from the homogeneitynecessary to their life, and it therefore becomes impossible for them to be brought intoharmony and so acquire the common instincts and interests, the common logic of existence,which is the sole justification for any social bond whatever. There is no greater curse thansuch disorder, for however bad it may have made the present state of things, it promisesstill worse for the future.Note The “ten civilizations” mentioned in the last paragraph are as follows. Theyare fully discussed in the subsequent books of the “Inequality of Races,” of which thepresent volume forms the first.I. The Indian civilization, which reached its highest point round the Indian Ocean,and in the north and east of the Indian Continent, south-east of the Brahmaputra.14 It arosefrom a branch of a white people, the Aryans.II. The Egyptians, round whom collected the Ethiopians, the Nubians, 15 and a fewsmaller peoples to the west of the oasis of Ammon. 16 This society was created by an Aryancolony from India, that settled in the upper valley of the Nile.III. The Assyrians,17 with whom may be classed the Jews, the Phoenicians, 18 theLydians,19 the Carthaginians,20 and the Hymiarites.21 They owed their civilizing qualities toA city of ancient Babylon located in Mesopotamia, mentioned in the Bible as where a tower was built toreach the heavens.13 Irrefutable.14 One of the major rivers of Southeast Asia, running through Tibet, the Himalayas, Bangladesh, and India.15 An ethnic group from southern Egypt and northern Sudan depicted by the Egyptians as very dark skinned.16 The capital of an ancient civilization that thrived from c. 1000 to 332 B.C., the site of Amman, the capital ofmodern-day Jordan.17 A Semitic kingdom located in the ancient Near East, which lasted from 2500 to 605 B.C.12
6the great white invasions which may be grouped under the name of the descendants ofShem and Ham.22 The Zoroastrian23 Iranians who ruled part of Central Asia under thenames of Medes,24 Persians, and Bactrians,25 were a branch of the Aryan family.IV. The Greeks, who came from the same Aryan stock, as modified by Semitic 26elements.V. The Chinese civilization, arising from a cause similar to that operating in Egypt.An Aryan colony from India brought the light of civilization to China also. Instead howeverof becoming mixed with black peoples, as on the Nile, the colony became absorbed in Malayand yellow races, and was reinforced, from the north-west, by a fair number of whiteelements, equally Aryan but no longer Hindu.VI. The ancient civilization of the Italian peninsula, the cradle of Roman culture. Thiswas produced by a mixture of Celts,27 Iberians,28 Aryans, and Semites.VII. The Germanic races, which in the fifth century transformed the Western mind.These were Aryans.VIII-X. The three civilizations of America, the Alleghanian, 29 the Mexican,30 and thePeruvian.31Of the first seven civilizations, which are those of the Old World, six belong, at leastin part, to the Aryan race, and the seventh, that of Assyria, owes to this race the IranianRenaissance, which is, historically, its best title to fame. Almost the whole of the Continentof Europe is inhabited at the present time by groups of which the basis is white, but inwhich the non-Aryan elements are the most numerous. There is no true civilization, amongthe European peoples, where the Aryan branch is not predominant.In the above list no negro race is seen as the initiator of a civilization. Only when it ismixed with some other can it even be initiated into one.Similarly, no spontaneous civilization is to be found among the yellow races; andwhen the Aryan blood is exhausted stagnation supervenes.An ancient Semitic civilization located in the coastal region of the Near East, which flourished in 1200–539B.C.19 A kingdom located in western Asia Minor, which lasted from 1200 to 546 B.C.20 A Semitic empire founded by the Phoenicians in the region of present-day Tunisia in 750 B.C.21 A kingdom in ancient Yemen which lasted from 110 B.C. to 525 A.D.22 Shem and Ham were sons of Noah in the Hebrew Bible.23 An ancient Iranian religion that divides the universe into competing forces of good and evil.24 People of the Median Empire in ancient Iran, existing from 678 to 549 B.C.25 Ancient inhabitants in an area between India and China.26 An ethnic and language family from Western Asia.27 A group of tribal societies who once encompassed most of Europe but were gradually confined to Ireland,Scotland, Wales, and Northeast France.28 A group of peoples from the Iberian Peninsula.29 Referring to the Native American tribes settled in the regions around the Alleghany Mountain range.30 The Aztec.31 The Inca.18
1 Primary Source 13.1 ARTHUR DE GOBINEAU, AN ESSAY ON THE INEQUALITY OF THE HUMAN RACES (1853-55)1 Arthur de Gobineau (1816–82), a French man of letters, formulated an early theory about race, which he propounded as “scientific,” but like all such theories was in fact pseudo- scientific. e also first posited the superiority of the “Aryan” people, an idea later
(Disc 4) Event Essay Event Essay Ideas and Plan Checklist and Grade Sheet Choose subject and begin research for six to seven ¶ Event Essay 12 (No Disc) No Disc Work on Event Essay in class None Continue Event Essay 13 (No Disc) No Disc Work on Event Essay in class None Finish Event Essay 14 (Disc
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