Chapter II: Preface: To Second Edition

History is repeating itself in America at the present time and incidentally is giving a convincing demonstration of the central thought in this volume, namely, that heredity and racial predisposition are stronger and more stable than environment and education.

Whatever may be its intellectual, its literary, its artistic or its musical aptitudes, as compared with other races, the Anglo-Saxon branch of the Nordic race is again showing itself to be that upon which the nation must chiefly depend for leadership, for courage, for loyalty, for unity and harmony of action, for self-sacrifice and devotion to an ideal. Not that members of other races are not doing their part, many of them are, but in no other human stock which has come to this country is there displayed the unanimity of heart, mind and action which is now being displayed by the descendants of the blue eyed, fair-haired peoples of the north of Europe. In a recent journey in northern California and Oregon I noted that, in the faces of the regiments which were first to leave for the city of New York and later that, in the wonderful array of young men at Plattsburg, the Anglo-Saxon type was clearly dominant over every other and the purest members of this type largely outnumbered the others. In northern California I saw a great regiment detrain and with one or two exceptions they were all native Americans, descendants of the English, Scotch and north of Ireland men who founded the State of Oregon in the first half of the nineteenth century. At Plattsburg fair hair and blue eyes were very noticeable, much more so than in any ordinary crowds of American collegians as seen assembled in our universities.

It should be remembered also that many of the dark-haired, dark-eyed youths of Plattsburg and other volunteer training camps are often three-fourths or seven-eighths Nordic, because it only requires a single dark-eyed ancestor to lend the dark hair and eye color to an otherwise pure Nordic strain. There is a clear differentiation between the original Nordic, the Alpine and the Mediterranean strains; but where physical characters and characteristics are partly combined in a mosaic, and to a less degree are blended, it requires long experience to judge which strain dominates.

With a race having these predispositions, extending back to the very beginnings of European history, there is no hesitation or even waiting for conscription and the sad thought was continually in my mind in California, in Oregon and in Plattsburg that again this race was passing, that this war will take a very heavy toll of this strain of Anglo-Saxon life which has played so large a part in American history.

War is in the highest sense dysgenic rather than eugenic. It is destructive of the best strains, spiritually, morally and physically. For the world’s future the destruction of wealth is a small matter compared with the destruction of the best human strains, for wealth can be renewed while these strains of the real human aristocracy once lost are lost forever. In the new world that we are working and fighting for, the world of liberty, of justice and of humanity, we shall save democracy only when democracy discovers its own aristocracy as in the days when our Republic was founded.

HENRY FAIRFIELD OSBORN.

December, 1917.

CONTENTS

_PART I_
RACE, LANGUAGE AND NATIONALITY
PAGE
I. RACE AND DEMOCRACY 3
II. THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF RACE 13
III. RACE AND HABITAT 37
IV. THE COMPETITION OF RACES 46
V. RACE, LANGUAGE AND NATIONALITY 56
VI. RACE AND LANGUAGE 69
VII. THE EUROPEAN RACES IN COLONIES 76

_PART II_
EUROPEAN RACES IN HISTORY
I. EOLITHIC MAN 97
II. PALEOLITHIC MAN 104
III. THE NEOLITHIC AND BRONZE AGES 119
IV. THE ALPINE RACE 134
V. THE MEDITERRANEAN RACE 148
VI. THE NORDIC RACE 167
VII. TEUTONIC EUROPE 179
VIII. THE EXPANSION OF THE NORDICS 188
IX. THE NORDIC FATHERLAND 213
X. THE NORDIC RACE OUTSIDE OF EUROPE 223
XI. RACIAL APTITUDES 226
XII. ARYA 233
XIII. ORIGIN OF THE ARYAN LANGUAGES 242
XIV. THE ARYAN LANGUAGE IN ASIA 253

APPENDIX WITH COLORED MAPS 265
DOCUMENTARY SUPPLEMENT 275
BIBLIOGRAPHY 415
INDEX 445

CHARTS AND MAPS

CHARTS
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE _Pages_ 132–133

CLASSIFICATION OF THE RACES OF EUROPE _Facing page_ 123

PROVISIONAL OUTLINE OF NORDIC INVASIONS AND METAL
CULTURES _Facing page_ 191

MAPS
MAXIMUM EXPANSION OF ALPINES WITH BRONZE CULTURE,
3000–1800 B. C. _Facing page_ 266

EXPANSION OF THE PRE-TEUTONIC NORDICS, 1800–100 B. C. _Facing page_ 268

EXPANSION OF THE TEUTONIC NORDICS AND SLAVIC ALPINES,
100 B. C.–1100 A. D. _Facing page_ 270

PRESENT DISTRIBUTION OF EUROPEAN RACES _Facing page_ 272