Heredity, race, and society.

  • Leslie Clarence Dunn
Date:
1947
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: Heredity, race, and society. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Hitler believed that the Aryan-Nordic-German race was the only one endowed with a multitude of excellent qualities and with no bad ones. But do not credit Hitler with having invented national self-glorification; since time immemorial people everywhere have indulged in this. Consider, for example, the following excerpts from the epistle addressed in 1793 by Emperor Chien Lung of China to King George III of Britain in response to the latter's embassy proposing commercial relations be tween the two countries: You, O King, live beyond the confines of many seas; nevertheless, impelled by your humble desire to partake of the benefits of our civilization, you have dispatched a mission respectfully bearing your memo rial. ... If you assert that your reverence for Our Celestial Dynasty fills you with a desire to acquire our civilization, our ceremonies and code of laws differ so completely from your own that, even if your Envoy were able to acquire the rudiments of our civilization, you could not possibly transplant our manners and cus toms to your alien soil. ... If I have commanded that the tribute offerings sent by you, O King, are to be accepted, this was solely in consideration for the spirit which prompted you to despatch them from afar. Our Dynasty's majestic virtue has penetrated into every country under Heaven, and kings of all nations have offered their costly tribute by land and sea. As your Ambassador can see for himself, we possess all things. I set no value on objects strange or ingenious, and have no use for your country's manufactures. Does this sound ridiculous? No more so than the similar chatter of many Britishers and Americans about the superiority of Anglo-Saxon civilization over the Unchanging East. Much effort has been expended to prove the superiority of the so-called Nordic race of Northwestern Europe, generally of course by Nordics or those who thought they were Nordics; just as similar claims that the cream of the Nordic race is to be found in the Old American stock are usually traceable to Old Americans.
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