VII.
A highly gifted race is invariably the outcome of complex elements, of many cross-currents. Invariably it is the outcome of moral, spiritual, and political factors. It is the outcome of unity of language, of unity of religion, of community of traditions and institutions. It is mainly religion which keeps apart the French and the Anglo-Saxon races in Canada, and which divides the Celt from the Ulsterman in Ireland. Let the religious boundary break down, and the Irish Celt will blend with the Ulster Scot, the French Canadian will mix with the Anglo-Saxon. The race heresy in its modern form is the sinister shadow projected by the biological materialism of the early Darwinians. It is the same materialistic conception which has triumphed in German Marxism and in the economic interpretation of history. It is the same conception which has triumphed in the Realpolitik and Weltpolitik, and the elimination of the moral factor from the activities of high policy. The tyranny of the race dogma permeates the majority of the German historians and publicists from the early nineteenth century. We find it in Mommsen’s “History of Rome.” It has found a striking expression in his famous chapter on the Celts, which is only a veiled attack against the French, who are assumed to be the lineal descendants of the Gauls. The same dogma is the dominant idea of Treitschke’s “History.” We find it in the bionda bestia of Nietzsche. We find it in the “Foundations of the Nineteenth Century” of Houston Stewart Chamberlain. We find it in the works of Count de Gobineau, who, after working unnoticed in his own country, has been heralded as the apostle of Pan-Germanism in the Vaterland. The race heresy has been the leitmotiv of all political controversies in the Empire. We find it equally in the anti-Semitic, in the anti-Russian, in the anti-French propaganda. It has culminated in the triple dogma of the superman, of the super-race, and of the super-State, and this triple dogma of the German Realpolitik has worked for the enslavement of Europe as inevitably as the triple dogma of the French Revolution—Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité—was bound to lead to the liberation of Europe.
VIII.
For the philosophy of race, with all the liberal demonstrations of its votaries, is essentially and inevitably the philosophy of reaction and the philosophy of militarism, if it is carried to its logical conclusion. And, unfortunately, in Germany it has been carried to its logical conclusion. In Britain and France thinkers have advocated the same deadly theories. The same deadly poison of pseudo-science has infected the body politic. But Darwin and Huxley always saved themselves by inconsistency from the ruthless application of their doctrines. The common sense of the community has shrunk from extreme logic. In a country of free discussion and of free institutions doctrines are counteracted by other influences. Theories are tested by life. In an autocratic country theories are supreme. The undiluted theories of Rousseau and Robespierre were supreme under the Reign of Terror; the theories of Katkov and the extreme Pan-Slavists were supreme in Russia under the reign of Alexander III. Under a government like Prussia, where all the spiritual forces are mobilized, where Universities, Churches, and newspapers are subject to the State, there is nothing to counteract the doctrinaire spirit. It is, therefore, not to be wondered at that the heresy of race should have become a fixed idea, a monomania, in the German Empire. In Great Britain the theories of the apostate Englishman Chamberlain could not have struck deep root, notwithstanding all the enthusiastic praise which Mr. Bernard Shaw has given to the “Foundations.” In France the theories of Count de Gobineau passed unnoticed. In Germany “Gobineau Societies” have been established in order to propagate the gospel of the French diplomat. In Germany one hundred thousand copies of the “Foundations” of Chamberlain, with their ponderous twelve hundred pages compact with facts and arguments, have been sold, have poisoned countless brains, and have wielded enormous political influence.
IX.
The first inevitable outcome of the German race heresy has been to stimulate the belief in the supremacy of the Teuton and to transform the natural conceit of patriotism into an odious megalomania. Once the Germans assumed in accordance with the race dogma that some European races are born to rule and others to obey, it was inevitable that they should draw the further inference that they of all races were the dominant race. It is true that the belief of the Calvinist in religious predestination may lead to a pessimistic as well as to an optimistic conclusion. The believer in predestination may assume that he is predestined to eternal damnation as easily as he assumes that he is predestined to eternal salvation. But the pseudo-scientific mind and the materialistic mind is not so easily addicted to humility and pessimism. The slave morality of the Christian may lead to meekness and charity and to all the negative virtues of a degenerate Christianity. The master morality of the Anti-Christ Nietzsche must lead to the ruthless assertion of power. The belief in race predestination can therefore only result in megalomania, and in Germany it has certainly resulted in the most acute, the most insane, inflation of nationalism and imperialism recorded in modern history. Of that megalomania the Kaiser has been, in innumerable speeches, the eloquent and insolent spokesman.
X.
Even as race heresy must result in racial megalomania, it must result in political reaction and in the government of caste. The principle which is true of the nation as a whole is as true of every section of that nation. And the pride of race in a nation is substantially the same thing as the pride of birth in a class. If amongst the races of man there is one particular breed, the Teuton, which constitutes the born aristocracy of humanity, so amongst those Teutons there is one special caste which is the born aristocracy of Teutonism. It is the rooted belief in the race theory which has maintained the rule of Junkerthum. On the race theory an exclusive aristocratic government recruited and maintained by artificial selection is the only logical and sensible government, and democracy is bound to be considered as a principle of decay. The Kings of Prussia select their rulers on the same principle on which King Frederick William selected his regiment of six-foot grenadiers from the military caste.
That is why we find in Prussia the most exclusive aristocratic government in the world. As a sop to Southern German opinion, Bismarck was compelled to grant universal suffrage for the Reichstag, but in the Prussian Parliament, or “Landtag,” Bismarck, the Junker of blood and iron, retained the good old principle of aristocratic government. Under the three-class voting system of the Landtag, one voter constituting by himself the first class may have as much political power as the twenty thousand electors constituting the third class. That is also why the Prussian Junker retains by right of birth a monopoly in the higher ranks of the Army, of the Diplomatic and Civil Service. The Junker is born to greatness even as the princely families of Germany have been born to a monopoly of all the thrones of Europe.