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 On the Inequality of Races

Joseph Arthur, Comte de Gobineau

France, 1853-1855

 

The word degenerate, when applied to a people, means (as it ought to mean) that the people has no longer the same intrinsic  value as it had before, because it has no longer the same blood  in its veins, continual adulterations having gradually affected  the quality of that blood. In other words, though the nation  bears the name given by its founders, the name no longer  connotes the same race in fact, the man of a decadent time, the degenerate man properly so called, is a different being, from the racial point of view, from the heroes of the great ages. . .He is only a very distant kinsman of those he still calls his ancestors. He, and his civilization with him, will certainly die on the day when the primordial race-unit is so broken up and swamped by the

influx of foreign elements, that its effective qualities have no longer a sufficient freedom of action. . .

 

I have been able to distinguish, on physio-logical grounds alone, three great and clearly marked types, the black, the yellow, and the white. However uncertain the aims of physiology may be, however meagre its resources, however defective its methods, it can proceed thus far with absolute certainty.

 

The negroid variety is the lowest, and stands at the foot of the ladder. The animal character, that appears in the shape of the pelvis, is stamped on the negro from birth, and foreshadows his destiny. His intellect will always move within a very narrow circle. He is not however a mere brute, for behind his low receding brow, in the middle of his skull, we can see signs of a powerful energy, however crude its objects. If his mental faculties are dull or even non-existent, he often has an intensity of desire, and so of will, which may be called terrible. Many of his senses, especially taste and smell, are developed to an extent

unknown to the other two races. . .

 

The very strength of his sensations is the most striking proof of his inferiority. . .

 

The yellow race is the exact opposite of this type. The skull points forward, not backward. The forehead is wide and bony, often high and projecting. The shape of the face is triangular, the nose and chin showing none of the coarse protuberances that mark the negro. There is further a general proneness to obesity, which, though not confined to the yellow type, is found there more frequently than in the others. The yellow man has little physical energy, and is inclined to apathy he commits none of the strange excesses so common among negroes. His desires are

feeble, his will-power rather obstinate than violent ; his longing for material pleasures, though constant, is kept within bounds. . .

 

He has a love of utility and a respect for order, and knows the value of a certain amount of freedom. He is practical, in the narrowest sense of the word. He does not dream or theorize; he invents little, but can appreciate and take over what is useful to him.

. . . The yellow races are thus clearly superior to the black. Every founder of a civilization would wish the backbone of his society, his middle class, to consist of such men. But no civilized society could be created by them ; they could not supply its nerve-force, or set in motion the springs of beauty and action.

 

We come now to the white peoples. These are gifted with reflective energy, or rather with an energetic intelligence. They have a feeling for utility, but in a sense far wider and higher, more courageous and ideal, than the yellow races; a perseverance that takes account of obstacles and ultimately finds a means of overcoming them; a greater physical power, an extraordinary instinct for order, not merely as a guarantee of peace and tranquillity, but as an indispensable means of self-preservation. At the same time, they have a remarkable, and even extreme, love of

liberty, and are openly hostile to the formalism under which the Chinese are glad to vegetate, as well as to the strict despotism which is the only way of governing the negro.

 

It would be unjust to assert that every mixture is bad and harmful. . . Artistic genius, which is equally foreign to each of the three great types, arose only after the intermarriage of white and black . . .

 

I do not deny that these are good results. The world of art and great literature that comes from the mixture of blood, the improvement and ennoblement of inferior races — all these are wonders for which we must needs be thankful. The small have been raised. Unfortunately, the great have been lowered by the same process; and this is an evil that nothing can balance or repair. Since I am putting together the advantages of racial mixtures, I will also add that to them is due the refinement of manners and beliefs, and especially the tempering of passion and desire. But these are merely transitory benefits. . . The white race originally possessed the monopoly of beauty, intehigence, and strength. By its union with other varieties, hybrids were created, which were beautiful without strength, strong without intelligence, or, if intelligent, both weak and ugly. . .

 

Print version: gobineau.docx

Source webpage and full text: http://archive.org/stream/inequalityofhuma00gobi/inequalityofhuma00gobi_djvu.txt.

 

Edited by: Mara Lazda

DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.