The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century

Synopsis

Published in German, the book advocates a form of Nordicism and focuses on the controversial pseudoscientific notion that Western civilization is deeply marked by the influence of the Teutonic peoples. Chamberlain grouped all European peoples—not just Germans, but Celts, Slavs, Greeks, and Latins—into the "Aryan race", a race built on the ancient Proto-Indo-European culture. At the helm of the Aryan race, and, indeed, all races, he saw the Nordic or Teutonic peoples.

Certain anthropologists would fain teach us that all races are equally gifted; we point to history and answer: that is a lie! The races of mankind are markedly different in the nature and also in the extent of their gifts, and the Germanic races belong to the most highly gifted group, the group usually termed Aryan ... Physically and mentally the Aryans are pre-eminent among all peoples; for that reason they are by right ... the lords of the world. Do we not see the homo syriacus develop just as well and as happily in the position of slave as of master? Do the Chinese not show us another example of the same nature?

Chamberlain's book focused on the claim that the Teutonic peoples were the heirs to the empires of Greece and Rome, something which Charlemagne and some of his successors also believed. He argued that when Germanic tribes destroyed the Roman Empire, Jews and other non-Europeans already dominated it. The Germanic tribes, in this scenario, saved Western civilization from Semitic domination. Chamberlain's thoughts were influenced by writings of Arthur de Gobineau (1816–1882), who had argued the superiority of the "Aryan race". This term was increasingly being used to describe Caucasian or European peoples, as opposed to Jews, who were conceptualised as "infusing Near Eastern poison into the European body politic". For Chamberlain the concept of an Aryan race was not simply defined by ethno-linguistic origins. It was also an abstract ideal of a racial élite. The Aryan, or "noble" race, was always changing as superior peoples supplanted inferior ones in evolutionary struggles for survival.

Building somewhat on the theories of de Gobineau and Georges Vacher de Lapouge (1854–1936), Chamberlain developed a relatively complex theory relating racial origins, physical features and cultural traits. According to Chamberlain, the modern Jew (Homo judaeica) mixes some of the features of the Hittite (H. syriaca) – notably the "Jewish nose", retreating chin, great cunning and fondness for usury – and of the true Semite, the Bedouin Arab (H. arabicus), in particular the dolichocephalic (long and narrow) skull, the thick-set body, and a tendency to be anti-intellectual and destructive. According to this theory, the product of this miscegenation was compromised by the great differences between these two stocks:

All historically great races and nations have been produced by mixing; but wherever the difference of type is too great to be bridged over, then we have mongrels. That is the case here. The crossing between Bedouin and Syrian was — from an anatomical point of view — probably worse than that between Spaniard and South American Indian.

Chamberlain also considered the Berbers from North Africa as belonging to the Aryan race.

The noble Moor of Spain is anything but a pure Arab of the desert, he is half a Berber (from the Aryan race) and his veins are so full of Gothic blood that even at the present day noble inhabitants of Morocco can trace their descent back to Teutonic ancestors.

Chamberlain (who had graduate training in biology) rejected Darwinism, evolution and social Darwinism, and instead emphasized "gestalt", which (he said) derived from Goethe. Chamberlain regarded Darwinism as the most abominable and misguided doctrine of the day.

Chamberlain used an old biblical notion of the ethnic makeup of Galilee to argue that while Jesus may have been Jewish by religion, he was probably not Jewish by race, claiming that he descended from the Amorites. During the inter-war period, certain pro-Nazi theologians, such as Walter Bauer and Walter Grundmann, and American Assyriologist Paul Haupt developed these ideas as part of the manufacture of an Aryan Jesus. Chamberlain's admirer Adolf Hitler held a similar view, as evidenced in his table talk, where he canvassed the idea of Jesus as the illegitimate son of a Roman soldier stationed in Galilee.