The Moral and Intellectual Diversity of Races: With Particular Reference to Their Respective Influence in the Civil and Political History of MankindGobineau, Arthur, comte de
Philosophy
The Moral and Intellectual Diversity of Races: With Particular Reference to Their Respective Influence in the Civil and Political History of Mankind
This seems to form a complete antithesis to the former. In them, the
skull, instead of being thrown backward, projects. The forehead is
large, often jutting out, and of respectable height. The facial
conformation is somewhat triangular, but neither chin nor nose has the
rude, animalish development that characterizes the negro. A tendency to
obesity is not precisely a specific feature, but it is more often met
with among the yellow races than among any others. In muscular vigor, in
intensity of feelings and desires, they are greatly inferior to the
black. They are supple and agile, but not strong. They have a decided
taste for sensual pleasures, but their sensuality is less violent, and,
if I may so call it, more vicious than the negro's, and less quickly
appeased. They place a somewhat greater value upon human life than the
negro does, but they are more cruel for the sake of cruelty. They are as
gluttonous as the negro, but more fastidious in their choice of viands,
as is proved by the immoderate attention bestowed on the culinary art
among the more civilized of these races. In other words, the yellow
races are less impulsive than the black. Their will is characterized by
obstinacy rather than energetic violence; their anger is vindictive
rather than clamorous; their cruelty more studied than passionate; their
sensuality more refinedly vicious than absorbing. They are, therefore,
seldom prone to extremes. In morals, as in intellect, they display a
mediocrity: they are given to grovelling vices rather than to dark
crimes; when virtuous, they are so oftener from a sense of practical
usefulness than from exalted sentiments. In regard to intellectual
capacity, they easily understand whatever is not very profound, nor very
sublime; they have a keen appreciation of the useful and practical, a
great love of quiet and order, and even a certain conception of a slight
modicum of personal or municipal liberty. The yellow races are practical
people in the narrowest sense of the word. They have little scope of
imagination, and therefore invent but little: for great inventions, even
the most exclusively utilitarian, require a high degree of the
imaginative faculty. But they easily understand and adopt whatever is of
practical utility. The _summum bonum_ of their desires and aspirations
is to pass smoothly and quietly through life.
It is apparent from this sketch, that they are superior to the blacks in
aptitude and intellectual capacity. A theorist who would form some
model society, might wish such a population to form the substratum upon
which to erect his structure; but a society, composed entirely of such
elements, would display neither great stamina nor capacity for anything
great and exalted.
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