It has been rather a
long story to tell, and full of platitudes, but the gist of it is by
this time clear. Whatever be the superstructure of social institutions,
of arts and sciences, of religion and philosophy, that European men have
built upon it, the regime which has made the Western World what it is,
from before the dawn of metallurgy until now, has been generically a
Bread culture; based on that combination of pastoral and agricultural
life in which large cattle co-operate with man in the laborious
preparation of the soil which cereal crops require. But the Bread
culture itself is always supplemented by some form of milk product, of
which cheese is typical. It is almost always supplemented further by
some special provision of fats; in Mediterranean conditions by olives
and oil, involving extensive tree culture; in the forest region by pig's
meat; and on the Atlantic seaboard by butter and beef.
The exhilarants show the same geographic control; with the olive culture
go the wines and brandies of the south; with the forest culture, the
ciders and the cherry brandies of Central Europe; with the copious
cereals and meadow-grass, the beers and whiskies of the North. In
details, of course, the distribution of types is intricately confused;
but the main outline is clear; and we reach a first glimpse of a
coherent European culture, on the almost animal plane of regional
foodquests.
RACE, LANGUAGE, AND CULTURE AS FACTORS OF UNITY
Precedence has been given in our inquiry to the mere animal struggle of
man with nature for bare subsistence, for two distinct reasons. The
first is economic, namely, that just because this struggle is without
qualification that of a highly intelligent animal species to maintain
itself under these or those conditions, it is one which befalls equally
every breed or race of that species which is ever exposed to those
conditions; and further, is no more mitigated by considerations of
language than by considerations of race. The second reason is historical
or archaeological. The spread of the Bread culture is dated so far back
in the history of man in this region, as to make it certain that it
preceded not merely the spread of the prevalent Indo-European group of
languages, but even the present distribution of racial types. It
certainly reached Italy, and the Atlantic seaboard as the British Isles,
before the brachycephalic 'Alpine' men arrived there; and still more
before the Boreal invasions of Britain and the opposite coasts. Indeed,
it would be truer to say that in general each breed of man which has
changed its distribution has had to adopt sooner or later the types of
culture appropriate to the regions into which it has penetrated, than to
associate the spread of any element of culture so fundamental as the
food-quest with the migrations of any racial type.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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