element--or rather something more than an
element--something which is the true essence of the race or nation,
something which sets its standard and determines its character,
something which draws to itself and assimilates to itself all other
elements. It so works that all other elements are not coequal elements
with itself, but mere infusions poured into an already existing body.
Doubtless these infusions do in some measure influence the body which
assimilates them; but the influence which they exercise is as nothing
compared to the influence which they undergo. We may say that they
modify the character of the body into which they are assimilated; they
do not effect its personality. Thus, assuming the great groups of
mankind as primary facts, the origin of which lies beyond our certain
knowledge, we may speak of families and races, of the great Aryan
family and of the races into which it parted, as groups which have a
real, practical existence, as groups founded on the ruling primeval
idea of kindred, even though in many cases the kindred may not be by
natural descent, but only by law of adoption. The Celtic, Teutonic,
Slavonic races of man are real living and abiding groups, the
distinction between which we must accept among the primary facts of
history. And they go on as living and abiding groups, even though we
know that each of them has assimilated many adopted members, sometimes
from other branches of the Aryan family, sometimes from races of men
alien to the whole Aryan stock. These races which, in a strictly
physiological point of view, have no existence at all, have a real
existence from the more practical point of view of history and
politics. The Bulgarian calls to the Russian for help, and the Russian
answers to his call for help, on the ground of their being alike
members of the one Slavonic race. It may be that, if we could trace
out the actual pedigree of this or that Bulgarian, of this or that
Russian, we might either find that there was no real kindred between
them, or we might find that there was a real kindred, but a kindred
which must be traced up to another stock than that of the Slaves. In
point of actual blood, instead of both being Slaves, it may be that one
of them comes, it may be that both of them come of a stock which is not
Slavonic or even Aryan. The Bulgarian may chance to be a Bulgarian in
a truer sense than he thinks for; he may come of the blood of those
original Finnish conque