V.
The German race theory is propped up by a formidable array of so-called scientific proofs. All the auxiliary disciplines of biology, botany and zoology, physiology and anatomy, are enlisted in the service of anthropology and ethnology. The question as to whether a particular nation is a Kultur Volk or whether it is only a rabble of slaves depends entirely on whether the facies is square or oval, brachycephalic or oligocephalic. It depends entirely—to use the pedantic jargon of the anthropologist—on the “cephalic index” of the race.
The historical sciences are called in to support the conclusions of ethnology. It is especially philology which is the most efficient instrument demonstrating the existence and the superiority of a distinct race. Just as anatomy reveals to us the structure of the cranium, so philology reveals to us the structure of the mind. The philologist reveals the genealogies of words even as the anthropologist studies the genealogies of races.
In the burning controversies which for the last generation have divided the Tchech and Magyar and Croatian and Roumanian races of the Austrian Empire, it is the philologists who have acted as umpires. In Vienna philologists like von Jagic have all the authority and prestige of statesmen. Similarly, in the Balkan States, Serbians and Bulgarians, Roumanians and Greeks, find conclusive evidence of their respective rights in the dialects of the Macedonian populations. Such and such a province must be allotted to the Serbians, and not to the Bulgarians, because such and such a dialect has more affinity to the Serbian than to the Bulgarian language. Similarly, in the Latin elements of their dictionary, Roumanian patriots find convincing evidence of their Latin ancestry, and finally prove that they are the lineal descendants of the Dacian legions of Emperor Trajan.[21]