In England the short, dark Mediterranean Welshman talks about being “Celtic,” quite unconscious that he is the residuum of Pre-Nordic races of immense antiquity. If the Celts are Mediterranean in race then they are absent from central Europe and we must regard as Celts all the Berbers and Egyptians, as well as many Persians and Hindus.
In France many anthropologists regard the Breton of Alpine blood in the same light and ignore his remote Asiatic origin. If these Alpine Bretons are Celts then there is no substantial trace of their blood, in the British Isles, as round skulls are practically absent there and all the blond elements in England, Scotland and Ireland must be attributed to the historic Teutonic invasions. Furthermore, we must call all the continental Alpines “Celts,” and must also include all Slavs, Armenians and other brachycephs of western Asia within that designation, which would be obviously grotesque. The fact that the original Celts left their speech on the tongues of Mediterraneans in Wales and of Alpines in Brittany must not mislead us, as it indicates nothing more than that Celtic speech antedates the Anglo-Saxons in England and the Romans in France. We must once and for all time discard the name “Celt” for any existing race whatever and speak only of “Celtic” language and culture.
In Ireland the big, blond Nordic Danes claim the honor of the name of “Celt,” if honor it be, but they are fully as Nordic as the English and the great mass of the Irish are of Danish, Norse and Anglo-Norman blood in addition to earlier and Pre-Nordic elements. We are all familiar with the blond and the brunet type of Irishman. These represent precisely the same racial elements as those which enter into the composition of the English, namely, the tall Nordic blond and the little Mediterranean brunet pure or combined with Paleolithic remnants. The Irish are consequently not entitled to independent national existence on the ground of race, but if there be any ground for political separation from England it must rest like that of Belgium on religion, a basis for political combinations now happily obsolete in communities well advanced in culture.
In the case of the so-called “Slavic race,” there is much more unity between racial type and language. It is true that in most Slavic-speaking countries the predominant race is clearly Alpine, except perhaps in Russia where there is a very large substratum of Nordic type—which may be considered as Proto-Nordic. The objection which is made to the identification of the Slavic race with the Alpine type rests chiefly on the fact that a very large portion of the Alpine race is German-speaking in Germany, Italian-speaking in Italy and French-speaking in central France. Moreover, large portions of Rumania are of exactly the same racial complexion.
Many of the modern Greeks are also Alpines; in fact, are little more than Byzantinized Slavs. It was through the Byzantine Empire that the Slavs first came in contact with the Mediterranean world and through this Greek medium the Russians, the Serbians, the Rumanians and the Bulgarians received their Christianity.
Situated on the eastern marches of Europe, the Slavs were submerged during long periods in the Middle Ages by Mongolian hordes and were checked in development and warped in culture. Definite traces remain of the blood of the Mongols both in isolated and compact groups in south Russia and also scattered throughout the whole country as far west as the German boundary. The high tide of the Mongol invasion was during the thirteenth century. Three hundred years later the great Muscovite expansion began, first over the steppes to the Urals and then across Siberian tundras and forests to the waters of the Pacific, taking up in its course much Mongolian blood, especially during the early stages of its advance.
The term “Caucasian race” has ceased to have any meaning except where it is used, in the United States, to contrast white populations with Negroes or Indians or in the Old World with Mongols. It is, however, a convenient term to include the three European subspecies when considered as divisions of one of the primary branches or species of mankind but it is, at best, a cumbersome and archaic designation. The name “Caucasian” arose a century ago from a false assumption that the cradle of the blond Europeans was in the Caucasus where no traces are now found of any such race, except a small and decreasing minority of blond traits among the Ossetes, a tribe whose Aryan speech is related to that of the Armenians, and who while mainly brachycephalic still retain some blond and dolichocephalic elements which apparently are fading fast. The Ossetes now have about thirty per cent fair eyes and ten per cent fair hair. They are supposed to be to some extent a remnant of the Alans, the easternmost Teutonic tribe and closely related to the Goths. Both Alans and Goths very early in the Christian era occupied southern Russia, and were the latest known Nordics in the vicinity of the Caucasus Mountains. If these Ossetes are not partly of Alan origin they may possibly represent the last lingering trace of ancient Scythian dolichocephalic blondness.
The phrase “Indo-European or Indo-Germanic race” is also of little use. If it has any meaning at all it must include all the three European races as well as members of the Mediterranean race in Persia and India. The use of this name also involves a false assumption of blood relationship between the north European populations and the Hindus, because of their possession in common of Aryan speech.
The name “Aryan race” must also be frankly discarded as a term of racial significance. It is to-day purely linguistic, although there was at one time, of course, an identity between the original Proto-Aryan mother tongue and the race that first spoke and developed it. In short, there is not nor has there ever been either a Caucasian or an Indo-European race, but there was once, thousands of years ago, an original Aryan race long since vanished into dim memories of the past. If used in a racial sense other than as above, it should be limited to the Nordic invaders of Hindustan now long extinct. The great lapse of time since the disappearance of the ancient Aryan race as such is measured by the extreme disintegration of the various groups of Aryan languages. These linguistic divergences are chiefly due to the imposition by conquest of Aryan speech upon several distinct subspecies of man throughout western Asia and Europe.
It may be pertinent before leaving this subject to point out that, as a whole, “Germans,” “French,” and “English,” as certain populations are now called, are but little more entitled to be considered the direct descendants, or even the exclusive modern representatives, of the ancient Germans, Franks or Anglo-Saxons, than are the living Italians or Greeks to be regarded as the offspring of the Romans of the days of the Republic or the Hellenes of the classic period. There are, of course, many individuals and groups, perhaps even classes, in each of these nations, who do accurately represent the race from which the national name was derived. The Scandinavians, on the other hand, are racially what they were two thousand years ago, though diminished somewhat in race vigor by the loss through the emigration of some of their more enterprising members. Meanwhile, at the other end of Europe, the modern Spaniard probably more closely represents the Iberians before the arrival of the Gauls than did the Spaniard of five hundred years ago.