In these as in other cases, the process of absorption from the viewpoint of the world at large is good or evil exactly in proportion to the relative value of the culture and race of the two groups. The world would be no richer in civilization with an independent Bohemia or an enlarged Rumania; but, on the contrary, an independent Hungarian nation strong enough to stand alone, a Finland self-governing or reunited to Sweden, or an enlarged Greece would add greatly to the forces that make for good government and progress. An independent Ireland worked out on a Tammany model is not a pleasing prospect. A free Poland, apart from its value as a buffer state, might be actually a step backward. Poland was once great, but the elements that made it so are scattered and gone and the Poland of to-day is a geographical expression and nothing more.
The prevailing lack of true race consciousness is probably due to the fact that every important nation in Europe as at present organized, with the sole exception of the Iberian and Scandinavian states, possesses in large proportions representatives of at least two of the fundamental European subspecies of man and of all manner of crosses between them. In France to-day, as in Cæsar’s Gaul, the three races divide the nation in unequal proportions.
In the future, however, with an increased knowledge of the correct definition of true human races and types and with a recognition of the immutability of fundamental racial characters and of the results of mixed breeding, far more value will be attached to racial in contrast to national or linguistic affinities. In marital relations the consciousness of race will also play a much larger part than at present, although in the social sphere we shall have to contend with a certain strange attraction for contrasted types. When it becomes thoroughly understood that the children of mixed marriages between contrasted races belong to the lower type, the importance of transmitting in unimpaired purity the blood inheritance of ages will be appreciated at its full value and to bring half-breeds into the world will be regarded as a social and racial crime of the first magnitude. The laws against miscegenation must be greatly extended if the higher races are to be maintained.
The language that a man speaks may be nothing more than evidence that at some time in the past his race has been in contact, either as conqueror or as conquered, with its original possessors. Postulating the Nordic origin and dissemination of the Proto-Aryan language, then in Asia and elsewhere existing Aryan speech on the lips of populations showing no sign of Nordic characters is to be considered evidence of a former dominance of Nordics now long vanished.
One has only to consider the spread of the language of Rome over the vast extent of her Empire to realize how few of those who speak to-day Romance tongues derive any portion of their blood from the pure Latin stock and the error of talking about a “Latin race” becomes evident.
There is, however, such a thing as a large group of nations which have a mutual understanding and sympathy based on the possession of a common or closely related group of languages and on the culture of which it is the medium. This assemblage maybe called the “Latin nations,” but never the “Latin race.”
“Latin America” is a still greater misnomer as the great mass of the populations of South and Central America is not even European and still less “Latin,” being overwhelmingly of Amerindian blood.
In the Teutonic group a large majority of those who speak Teutonic languages, as the English, Flemings, Dutch, North Germans and Scandinavians, are descendants of the Nordic race while the dominant class in Europe is everywhere of that blood.
As to the so-called “Celtic race,” the fantastic inapplicability of the term is at once apparent when we consider that those populations on the borders of the Atlantic Ocean, who to-day speak Celtic dialects, are divided into three groups, each one showing in great purity the characters of one of the three entirely distinct human subspecies found in Europe. To class together the Breton peasant with his round Alpine skull; the little, long skulled, brunet Welshman of Mediterranean race, and the tall, blond, light-eyed Scottish Highlander of pure Nordic blood, in a single group labelled Celtic is obviously impossible. These peoples have neither physical, mental nor cultural characteristics in common. If one be of “Celtic” blood then the other two are clearly of different origin.
There was once a people who used the original Celtic language and they formed the western vanguard of the Nordic race. This people was spread all over central and western Europe prior to the irruption of the Teutonic tribes and were, no doubt, much mixed with Alpines among the lower classes. The descendants of these Celts must be sought to-day among those having the characters of the Nordic race and not elsewhere.