Outspoken Essays. William Ralph Inge

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СКАЧАТЬ capacity is a different thing from the old feudal loyalty. It is far more impersonal; the ruler, whether an individual or a council, is reverenced as a non-human and non-moral embodiment of the national power, a sort of Platonic idea of coercive authority. This kind of loyalty may very easily be carried too far. In reality, we are members of a great many 'social organisms,' each of which has indefeasible claims upon us. Our family, our circle of acquaintance, our business or profession, our church, our country, the comity of civilised nations, humanity at large, are all social organisms; and some of the chief problems of ethics are concerned with the adjustment of their conflicting claims. To make any one of these absolute is destructive of morality. But militarism and socialism deliberately make the state absolute. In internal affairs this may lead to the ruthless oppression of individuals or whole classes; in external relations it produces wars waged with 'methods of barbarism.' The whole idea of the state as an organism, which has been emphasised by social reformers as a theoretical refutation of selfish individualism, rests on the abuse of a metaphor. The bond between the dwellers in the same political area is far less close than that between the organs of a living body. Every man has a life of his own, and some purely personal rights; he has, moreover, moral links with other human associations, outside his own country, and important moral duties towards them. No one who reflects on the solidarity of interests among capitalists, among hand-workers, or, in a different way, among scholars and artists, all over the world, can fail to see that the apotheosis of the state, whether in the interest of war or of revolution, is an anachronism and an absurdity.

      A very different basis for patriotic sentiment is furnished by the scientific or pseudo-scientific theories about race, which have become very popular in our time. When the history of ideas in the 20th century comes to be written, it is certain that among the causes of this great war will be named the belief of the Germans in the superiority of their own race, based on certain historical and ethnological theories which have acted like a heady wine in stimulating the spirit of aggression among them. The theory, stated briefly, is that the shores of the Baltic are the home of the finest human type that has yet existed, a type distinguished by blond hair, great physical strength, unequalled mental vigour and ability, superior morality, and an innate aptitude for governing and improving inferior races. Unfortunately for the world, this noble stock cannot flourish for very long in climates unlike its own; but from the earliest historical times it has 'swarmed' periodically, subjugating the feebler peoples of the south, and elevating them for a time above the level which they were naturally fitted to reach. Wherever we find marked energy and nobleness of character, we may suspect Aryan blood; and history will usually support our surmise. Among the great men who were certainly or probably Germans were Agamemnon, Julius Cæsar, the Founder of Christianity, Dante, and Shakespeare. The blond Nordic giant is fulfilling his mission by conquering and imposing his culture upon other races. They ought to be grateful to him for the service, especially as it has a sacrificial aspect, the lower types having, at least in their own climates, greater power of survival.

      This fantastic theory has been defended in a large number of German books, of which the 'Foundations of the Nineteenth Century,' by the renegade Englishman Houston Chamberlain, is the most widely known. The objections to it are numerous. It is notorious that until the invention of gunpowder the settled and civilised peoples of Europe were in frequent danger from bands of hardier mountaineers, forest-dwellers, or pastoral nomads, who generally came from the north. But the formidable fighting powers of these marauders were no proof of intrinsic superiority. In fact, the most successful of these conquerors, if success is measured by the amount of territory overrun and subdued, were not the 'great blond beasts' of Nietzsche, but yellow monsters with black hair, the Huns and Tartars.[9] The causes of Tartar ascendancy had not the remotest connection with any moral or intellectual qualities which we can be expected to admire. Nor can the Nordic race, well endowed by nature as it undoubtedly is, prove such a superiority as this theory claims for it. Some of the largest brains yet measured have been those of Japanese; and the Jews have probably a higher average of ability than the Teutons. Again, the Germans are not descended from a pure Nordic stock. The Northern type can be best studied in Scandinavia, where the people share with the Irish the distinction of being the handsomest race in the world. The German is a mixture of various anatomical types, including, in some parts, distinct traces of Mongolian blood, which indicate that the raiding Huns meddled, according to their custom, with the German women, and bequeathed to a section of the nation the Turanian cheek-bones, as well as certain moral characteristics. Lastly, the German race has never shown much aptitude for governing and assimilating other peoples. The French, by virtue of their greater sympathy, are far more successful.

      The French have their own form of this pseudo-science in their doctrine of the persistence of national characteristics. Each nation may be summed up in a formula: England, for example, is 'the country of will.' A few instances may, no doubt, be quoted in support of this theory. Julius Cæsar said: 'Duas res plerasque Gallia industriosissime prosequitur, rem militarem et argute loqui'; and these are still the characteristics of our gallant allies. And Madame de Staël may be thought to have hit off the German character very cleverly about the time when Bismarck first saw the light. 'The Germans are vigorously submissive. They employ philosophical reasonings to explain what is the least philosophic thing in the world, respect for force and the fear which transforms that respect into admiration.' But the fact remains that the characters of nations frequently change, or rather that what we call national character is usually only the policy of the governing class, forced upon it by circumstances, or the manner of living which climate, geographical position, and other external causes have made necessary for the inhabitants of a country.

      To found patriotism on homogeneity of race is no wiser than to bound it by frontier lines. As the Abbé Noël has lately written about his own country, Belgium,

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