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
But when the animal propensities are so moderate as to be subordinate to
an intellect more or less vigorous, the moral aspirations will yearn
towards the regions of the abstract. Religion becomes a system of
metaphysics, and often loses itself in the mazes of its own subtlety.
The political organization and civil legislation will be simple, for
there are few passions to restrain; but the laws which regulate social
intercourse will be many and various, and supposed to emanate directly
from the Deity.
Strong animal passions, joined to an intellect equally strong, allow the
greatest expanse for the moral sense. Political organizations the most
complex and varied, social and civil laws the most studied, will be the
outward character of a society composed of such elements. Internally we
shall perceive the greatest contrasts of individual goodness and
wickedness. Religion will be a symbolism of human passions and the
natural elements for the many, an ingenious fabric of moral speculations
for the few.
I have here rapidly sketched a series of pictures from nature, which
the historian and ethnographer will not fail to recognize. Whether the
features thus cursorily delineated are owing to the causes to which I
ascribe them, I must leave for the reader to decide. My space is too
limited to allow of my entering into an elaborate argumentation. But I
would observe that, by taking this view of the subject, we can
understand why all human--and therefore false--religions are so
intimately connected with the social and political organization of the
peoples which profess them, and why they are so plainly mapped out on
the globe as belonging to certain races, to whom alone they are
applicable, and beyond whose area they cannot extend: while Christianity
knows no political or social forms, no geographical or ethnological
limits. The former, being the productions of human intellect, must vary
with its variation, and perish in its decay, while revelation is
universal and immutable, like the Intelligence of which it is the
emanation.
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