France -- History; France -- Politics and government; France -- Social conditions
And doubtless this theory--like all which have held their ground for many
centuries--at first represented a fact. These castes were, at first,
actually superior to the peoples over whom they ruled. I cannot, as long
as my eyes are open, yield to the modern theory of the equality--indeed
of the non-existence--of races. Holding, as I do, the primaeval unity of
the human race, I see in that race the same inclination to sport into
fresh varieties, the same competition of species between those varieties,
which Mr. Darwin has pointed out among plants and mere animals. A
distinguished man arises; from him a distinguished family; from it a
distinguished tribe, stronger, cunninger than those around. It asserts
its supremacy over its neighbours at first exactly as a plant or animal
would do, by destroying, and, where possible, eating them; next, having
grown more prudent, by enslaving them; next, having gained a little
morality in addition to its prudence, by civilising them, raising them
more or less toward its own standard. And thus, in every land,
civilisation and national life has arisen out of the patriarchal state;
and the Eastern scheik, with his wives, free and slave, and his hundreds
of fighting men born in his house, is the type of all primaeval rulers.
He is the best man of his horde--in every sense of the word best; and
whether he have a right to rule them or not, they consider that he has,
and are the better men for his guidance.
Whether this ought to have been the history of primaeval civilisation, is
a question not to be determined here. That it is the history thereof, is
surely patent to anyone who will imagine to himself what must have been.
In the first place, the strongest and cunningest savage must have had the
chance of producing children more strong and cunning than the average; he
would have--the strongest savage has still--the power of obtaining a
wife, or wives, superior in beauty and in household skill, which involves
superiority of intellect; and therefore his children would--some of them
at least--be superior to the average, both from the father's and the
mother's capacities. They again would marry select wives; and their
children again would do the same; till, in a very few generations, a
family would have established itself, considerably superior to the rest
of the tribe in body and mind, and become assuredly its ruling race.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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