[98] W. Von Humboldt, _op. cit._, p. 37: "Wenn wir in unserer Sprache _Bildung_ sagen, so meinen wir damit etwas zugleich Höheres und mehr Innerlicheres, nämlich die Sinnesart, die sich aus der Erkenntniss und dem Gefühle des gesammten geistigen und sittlichen Streben harmonish auf die Empfindung und den Charakter ergiesst." As nothing can exceed the difficulty of rendering an abstract idea from the French into English, except to transmit the same from German into French, and as if _all_ these processes must be undergone, the identity of the idea is greatly endangered, I have thought proper to translate at once from the original German, and therefore differ somewhat from Mr. Gobineau, who gives it thus: "L'homme formé, c'est-à-dire, l'homme qui, dans sa nature, possède quelque chose de plus haut, de plus intime à la fois, c'est-à-dire, une façon de comprendre qui répand harmonieusement sur la sensibilité et le charactère les impressions qu'elle reçoit de l'activité intellectuelle et morale dans son ensemble." I have taken great pains to express clearly Mr. Von Humboldt's idea, and have therefore amplified the word _Sinnesart_, which has not its precise equivalent in English.--TRANS. [99] See page 154. [100] Mr. Klemm (_Allgemeine Culturgeschichte der Menschheit_, Leipzig, 1849) adopts, also, a division of all races into two categories, which he calls respectively the _active_ and the _passive_. I have not had the advantage of perusing his book, and cannot, therefore, say whether his idea is similar to mine. It would not be surprising that, in pursuing the same road, we should both have stumbled over the same truth. [101] The translator has here permitted himself a deviation from the original. Mr. Gobineau, to express his idea, borrows from the symbolism of the Hindoos, where the feminine principle is represented by Prakriti, and the masculine by Purucha, and calls the two categories of races respectively feminine and masculine. But as he "thereby wishes to express nothing but a mutual fecundation, without ascribing any superiority to either," and as the idea seems fully rendered by the words used in the translation, the latter have been thought preferable, as not so liable to misrepresentation and misconception.--H. CHAPTER IX. ELEMENTS OF CIVILIZATION--CONTINUED. Definition of the term--Specific differences of civilizations--Hindoo, Chinese, European, Greek, and Roman civilizations--Universality of Chinese civilization--Superficiality of ours--Picture of the social condition of France.