Race, indeed, in Europe, as well as further afield, has been anything
but a factor of unity. When we speak (on platforms) of Europeans as
'white men', we are in danger of forgetting, what every practical man in
our audience knows, that we are dealing with at least three distinct
breeds of mankind, which agree, indeed, rather imperfectly in the
whiteness of their skin, but differ greatly in other points of structure
and physique, including resistance to certain types of climate and
regional diseases, and not least in temperament and the quality of their
response to Nature's challenges of hardship or indulgence. Of these
three breeds of man, only one, the blond Boreal giants (the only 'white
men' in the strict sense of defect of pigment in skin, hair, and eyes)
is exclusively European now, and has his habitat within the area of the
'Boreal' groups of animals and plants. His champions in ethnological
propaganda seem to be of two minds about his earlier distribution;
either his 'home' was round the Baltic, in which case it is difficult to
see why he should be represented as a civilizing agency, in view of the
cultural backwardness of that region; or else it was out on the Eurasian
grassland, in which case he is as much an intruder into peninsular
Europe as his brachycephalic 'Alpine' rival, and his claim to represent
indigenous European man must go. The large part which he has played in
European history seems to result partly from his great physical
strength, surpassed (I believe) only by that of the Negro, partly from
his reluctance, not so much to interbreed with more pigmented strains,
but to admit the crossbred offspring to full partnership with himself.
Even among his like, he has his own criteria by which one 'white man'
knows another, and coheres with him politically.
Most strongly contrasted externally with the 'Boreal' type is the
slight-built Mediterranean brunet. That his home is in the south, that
he is closely related with the men of the African and Arabian
grasslands, and that he was among the first post-glacial explorers of
the Atlantic seaboard, is admitted. More doubt arises as to the extent
to which he penetrated from these southern and western bases into the
heart of peninsular Europe. Certainly as we trace him to the south-east
he seems more and more restricted to the Mediterranean coastline, and at
last has no early monopoly even of the islands. The contrast between
Crete and Cyprus is instructive as to this. The 'Mediterranean' type, in
fact, reaffirms to the anthropologist the close zoological affinity
between South-west Europe and North-west Africa.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account