Europe may be aptly regarded as a vast field of settlement where the native element has, again and again, been swamped by successive flows of immigrants proceeding from every point of the compass. The wanderings of these invaders have been directed, in part, into channels provided by the main mountain ranges of Eurasia. Valleys or plains which favored expansion of nationality were, at the same time, the avenues through which languages spread. The barrier boundary of the Mediterranean basin contains a number of important breaches on the north[1] which facilitated the mingling of the Nordic race with Mediterranean men after it had mixed with Alpine peoples. Within historic times men of Celtic speech have been driven westward by Teutons, who also pressed Slavs in the opposite direction. The consequence is that few Frenchmen or Germans of our day can lay claim to racial purity. Northern France is perhaps more Teutonic than southern Germany, while eastern Germany is, in many places, more Slavic than Russia. To ascribe political significance to race is therefore as difficult today as it was when Roman citizenship meant infinitely more in comparison.
Nationality, however, an artificial product derived from racial raw material, confers distinctiveness based on history. It is the cultivated plant, blossoming on racial soil and fertilized by historical association. In the words of Ossian: “It is the voice of years that have gone; they roll before me with all their deeds.” Men alone cannot constitute nationality. A nation is the joint product of men and ideas. A heritage of ideals and traditions held in common and accumulated during centuries becomes, in time, the creation of the land to which it is confined.
Language, the medium in which is expressed successful achievement or hardship shared in common, acquires therefore cementing qualities. It is the bridge between the past and the present. Its value as the cohesive power of nationality is superseded, in rare instances, by ideals similarly based on community of tradition, hope, or in some cases religion. In speech or writing, words give life to the emotion which nationality stirs in the heart or to the reasoning which it awakens in the mind.
The distinction between the conceptions of race, language and nationality should, at the very outset, be clearly established. Race deals with man both as a physical creature and as a being endowed with spiritual qualities. Tall, blond men constitute a race distinct from their fellows who combine stockiness and brunetness. The basis of differentiation in this case is anatomical. Hence, to talk of an English or Persian race is erroneous. Every nation contains people endowed with widely different physiques, owing to the extensive intermingling of races which has taken place in the course of the million years during which the earth has been inhabited. To be precise, our conception of racial differences must conform to classifications recognized by modern anthropologists. We shall therefore consider the Mediterranean, Alpine and Nordic races—to mention only those composed of white men—and we shall find that they all blend in European nationalities.
Fig. 1—View of the “route d’Italie” or road to Italy at the extreme southeastern border of France and well inside the small area of Italian language lying within the French political boundary.
Take, as an example, the racial elements entering into the composition of French nationality. The dominating type, in northern France, belongs to the tall, narrow-headed Nordic race, with blue eyes and fair hair. Frenchmen with these characteristics are descendants of Franks and Gauls who settled in the northern plains of the Paris basin. In Brittany and the Massif Central, however, a round-headed and dark type, short and stockily built, is scattered over the two main piles of Archean mountains which still remain exposed to view. In the Aquitaine basin, as well as in the Lower Rhone valley, the narrow-headed Mediterranean race, with dark eyes and hair, is everywhere evident in the short, brunet inhabitants.
Ripley adheres to the racial segregation of European man in the three groups enumerated above. But a further reduction can be established on a purely geographical basis, with the result that Europeans may be classed primarily either as highlanders or lowlanders. Anthropological classification fits admirably in this dual distinction, since the inhabitants of European mountain lands belong to the round-head type while the dwellers of the depressions north and south of the central uplifts have long heads.
From the conception of race we attain that of people by considering the second as derived from the mingling of the first. Intercourse between the three great races of Europe has always existed as a result of migratory movements. The impulse to wander, however much it differed in each known instance, can usually be traced to a single determining cause, definable as the quest after comfort. This was the motive which led men of the Nordic race to abandon their uncomfortable habitat in the north. The same feeling was experienced by Alpine mountaineers as they descended towards attractive lowlands north and south of their rough mountain homes.