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Joseph Arthur, Comte de Gobineau (14 July 1816 – 13 October 1882) was a French aristocrat, novelist and man of letters who became famous for developing the theory of the Aryan master race in his book ''An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races''〔Snyder, Louis L. (1939). ("Gobinism: The 'Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races'," ) in ''Race: A History of Ethnic Theories.'' New York: Longmans, Green & Co., pp. 114-130.〕 (1853–1855). Gobineau is credited as being the father of modern racial demography. Since the late 20th century, his works have been considered early examples of scientific racism. ==Life and theories== Gobineau's father was a government official and staunch royalist, and his mother, Anne-Louise Magdeleine de Gercy, was the daughter of a royal tax official. Her father was not a nobleman, but he took the 'count' title to his name himself.〔Cohen, William B. (1980). ''The French Encounter with Africans''. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, p. 217〕 In the later years of the July Monarchy, Gobineau made his living writing serialized fiction (romans-feuilletons) and contributing to reactionary periodicals. He struck up a friendship and had voluminous correspondence with Alexis de Tocqueville.〔Richter, Melvin (1958). "The Study of Man. A Debate on Race: The Tocqueville-Gobineau Correspondence," ''Commentary'' 25 (2), pp. 151-160.〕〔Alexis de Tocqueville, ''The European Revolution and Correspondence with Gobineau,'' John Lukacz (ed.), Doubleday Anchor Books, 1959.〕〔Beloff, Max (1986). ("Tocqueville & Gobineau," ) ''Encounter,'' Vol. LXVII, No. 1, pp. 29-31.〕〔Tessitore, Aristide (2005). "Tocqueville and Gobineau on the Nature of Modern Politics," ''The Review of Politics,'' Vol. 67, No. 4, pp. 631-657.〕 The latter man gave Gobineau an appointment in the Quai d'Orsay (the French foreign ministry) while serving as foreign minister during the Second Republic of France.〔D. J. Richards, "Arthur de Gobineau." In ''Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 123: Nineteenth-Century French Fiction Writers: Naturalism and Beyond, 1860-1900.'' A Bruccoli Clark Layman Book. Edited by Catharine Savage Brosman, Tulane University. The Gale Group, 1992. pp. 101-117.〕 Gobineau served as a successful diplomat for the Second French Empire. Initially he was posted to Persia, before working in Brazil and other countries. In his own lifetime, Gobineau was known as a novelist, as a poet and for the travel writing recounting his adventures in the Middle East and Brazil rather than for the racial theories for which he is now mostly remembered.〔Blue, Gregory "Gobineau on China: Race Theory, the "Yellow Peril," and the Critique of Modernity" pages 93-139 from ''Journal of World History'' Volume 10, Issue # 1, Spring 199 page 98.〕 However, Gobineau always regarded his book ''Essai sur l'inégalité des races humaines'' as his masterpiece and wanted to be remembered as the author of that work.〔Blue, Gregory "Gobineau on China: Race Theory, the "Yellow Peril," and the Critique of Modernity" pages 93-139 from ''Journal of World History'' Volume 10, Issue # 1, Spring 1999 page 98.〕 A firm reactionary who believed in the innate superiority of aristocrats over commoners - who the snobbish Gobineau held in utter contempt - Gobineau came to embrace scientific racism as a way of justifying aristocratic rule over racially inferior commoners.〔Blue, Gregory "Gobineau on China: Race Theory, the "Yellow Peril," and the Critique of Modernity" pages 93-139 from ''Journal of World History'' Volume 10, Issue # 1, Spring 1999 page 99.〕 Under the shock of the Revolution of 1848, Gobineau had first expressed his racial theories in his 1848 epic poem ''Manfredine'' where he expressed his fear that the revolution of 1848 was the beginning of the end of aristocratic Europe with the common folk descended from lesser breeds taking over.〔Blue, Gregory "Gobineau on China: Race Theory, the "Yellow Peril," and the Critique of Modernity" pages 93-139 from ''Journal of World History'' Volume 10, Issue # 1, Sprin 1999 page 99.〕 Reflecting his disdain for ordinary people, Gobineau claimed that French aristocrats like himself were the descendants of the Germanic Franks who conquered the Roman province of Gaul in the 5th century AD while common French people were the descendants of racially inferior Celtic and Latin peoples. This was an old theory first promoted in a tract by Count Henri de Boulainvilliers who had argued that Second Estate (the aristocracy) was of "Frankish" blood and the Third Estate (the commoners) were of "Gaulish" blood.〔Davies, Alan ''Infected Christianity: A Study of Modern Racism'', Montreal: McGill Press, 1988 pages 55-56〕 The Canadian theologian, Reverend Alan T. Davies wrote that in ''ancien régime'' France was characterized by extremely rigid social distinctions and that unlike Britain with its "open aristocracy", the French nobility had evolved into a "caste".〔Davies, Alan ''Infected Christianity: A Study of Modern Racism'', Montreal: McGill Press, 1988 page 56〕 Again unlike Britain where there was a certain sense of Britishness linking the different levels of society, the French Second Estate had literally come to view the Third Estate as biologically different from and inferior to themselves.〔 As someone born after the French Revolution had destroyed the idealized ''ancien régime'' of his imagination, Gobineau felt a deep sense of pessimism regarding the future.〔Davies, Alan ''Infected Christianity: A Study of Modern Racism'', Montreal: McGill Press, 1988 page 57〕 Davies described Gobineau as someone who was extremely "alienated" from the society and age he was living in, and wrote that Gobineau's frequent prophecies about the coming destruction of European civilization as there was not enough Aryan blood left to sustain Europe reflected the fact that Gobineau, who was unable to embrace his age instead wished for its destruction.〔Davies, Alan ''Infected Christianity: A Study of Modern Racism'', Montreal: McGill Press, 1988 page 59〕 For Gobineau, the French Revolution having destroyed the racial basis of French greatness by overthrowing and in many cases killing the aristocracy was the beginning of a long, irresistible progress of decline and degeneration which only end with the utter collapse of European civilization.〔Davies, Alan ''Infected Christianity: A Study of Modern Racism'', Montreal: McGill Press, 1988 pages 57-59〕 For Gobineau, what the French Revolution had begun, the Industrial Revolution was finishing, and for him, industrialization and urbanization were a complete disaster for Europe.〔Davies, Alan ''Infected Christianity: A Study of Modern Racism'', Montreal: McGill Press, 1988 pages 57-58〕 Gobineau was no socialist, but he had an intense hatred of capitalism, which allowed for poor men to rise up and become rich.〔 Davies wrote about Gobineau: "Having identified his own fortunes with a caste that had been overthrown in 1789, he detested an age that had turned against his aristocratic (racial) linage and values. In his estrangement, he consoled himself with sad reflections on the impeding death of civilization, although there is sufficient narcissism in his pages to suggest that his own death was also the object-perhaps the true object-of his contemplation...To the jaded man-of-letters, the would-be aristocrat, these "deep stagnant waters" over which the fragile structure of civilization was suspended were steadily rising, and France-and Europe-would soon be submerged."〔Davies, Alan ''Infected Christianity: A Study of Modern Racism'', Montreal: McGill Press, 1988 pages 59-60〕Like many other European romantic conservatives, Gobineau looked back nostalgically at an idealized version of the Middle Ages as an idyllic agrarian society living harmoniously in a rigid social order.〔 Gobineau loathed modern Paris, a city he called a "giant cesspool" full of ''les déracinés''; the criminal, impoverished, drifting men with no real home; whom Gobineau considered to be the monstrous products of centuries of miscegenation who always ready to explode in revolutionary violence at any moment.〔 Gobineau was an ardent opponent of democracy, which claimed was mere "mobocracy"-a system that allowed the utterly stupid mob the final say on running the state.〔 Gobineau came to believe that race created culture, arguing that distinctions among the three races - "black", "white", and "yellow" - were natural barriers, and that "race-mixing" breaks those barriers and leads to chaos. Of the three races, Gobineau argued that blacks were physically very strong, but incapable of intelligent thought.〔Blue, Gregory "Gobineau on China: Race Theory, the "Yellow Peril," and the Critique of Modernity" pages 93-139 from ''Journal of World History'' Volume 10, Issue # 1, Spring 1999 page 100.〕 Regarding the "yellows" as Gobineau called Asians, he claimed that they were physically and intellectually mediocre, but had an extremely strong materialism that allowed them to achieve certain results.〔 Finally, Gobineau wrote that whites were the best and greatest of the three races as whites and whites alone were the only ones capable of intelligent thought, were the physically the most beautiful and were the only ones capable of creating beauty.〔 Gobineau wrote that "The white race originally possessed the monopoly of beauty, intelligence and strength" and that whatever of the positive qualities the Asians and blacks possessed was due to subsequent miscegenation.〔Blue, Gregory "Gobineau on China: Race Theory, the "Yellow Peril," and the Critique of Modernity" pages 93-139 from ''Journal of World History'' Volume 10, Issue # 1, Spring 1999 page 101.〕 Within the white race, there was a further subdivision between the Aryans who were the epitome of all that great about the white race and non-Aryans.〔Blue, Gregory "Gobineau on China: Race Theory, the "Yellow Peril" and the Critique of Modernity" pages 93-139 from ''Journal of World History'' Volume 10, Issue # 1, Spring 1999 pages 100-101.〕 Gobineau took the term Aryan ("light one" or "noble one") from Hindu legend and mythology where recounts how the Indian subcontinent was conquered in at some time in the distant past by the Aryans. This is generally believed to have reflected folk memories of the arrival of the Indo-European peoples into the Indian subcontinent. Gobineau argued on the basis of the Hindu scriptures which stated that the highest castes are the descendants of the Aryans that the Hindu caste system reflected in his view an admirable determination of the Aryans to attempt to preserve their superior blood from being intermixed with the racially inferior conquered peoples.〔Blue, Gregory "Gobineau on China: Race Theory, the "Yellow Peril," and the Critique of Modernity" pages 93-139 from ''Journal of World History'' Volume 10, Issue # 1, Spring 1999 page 103.〕 Gobineau believed that the white race had originated somewhere in Siberia, the Asians in the Americas and the blacks in Africa.〔 Gobineau believed that the numerical superiority of the Asians had forced the whites into making a vast migration that led them into the Europe, the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent and that both the Bible and Hindu legends about the conquering Aryan heroes reflected folk memories of this migration.〔Blue, Gregory "Gobineau on China: Race Theory, the "Yellow Peril," and the Critique of Modernity" pages 93-139 from ''Journal of World History'' Volume 10, Issue # 1, Spring 1999 pages 101-102.〕 In turn, the whites had broken into three sub-races, namely the Hamitic, Semitic and Japhetic peoples-the latter were the Aryans of Hindu legend and were the best and greatest of all the whites.〔Blue, Gregory "Gobineau on China: Race Theory, the "Yellow Peril," and the Critique of Modernity" pages 93-139 from ''Journal of World History'' Volume 10, Issue # 1, Spring 1999 page 102.〕 At the same time, in southeast Asia the blacks and Asians had intermixed to create the sub-race of the Malays.〔 He classified Southern Europe, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Central Asia, and North Africa as racially mixed.〔J.A. Gobineau: ''The Moral and Intellectual Diversity of Races.'' J.B. Lippincott & Co, Philadelphia (1856), p.337–338〕 Through a proud Frenchman, Gobineau was fairly cosmopolitan and regarded himself as a part of a cultured European elite that transcended national loyalties, a good Frenchman but even more so a "good European"; the aristocratic snob Gobineau felt more affinity for fellow aristocrats of other nationalities than he did for French commoners.〔Blue, Gregory "Gobineau on China: Race Theory, the "Yellow Peril," and the Critique of Modernity" pages 93-139 from ''Journal of World History'' Volume 10, Issue # 1, Spring 1999 page 96.〕 In 1876, he accompanied his close friend Emperor Pedro II of Brazil on his trip to Russia and the Ottoman Empire and introduced him to both Emperor Alexander II of Russia and the Sultan Abdul Hamid II of the Ottoman Empire.〔Blue, Gregory "Gobineau on China: Race Theory, the "Yellow Peril," and the Critique of Modernity" pages 93-139 from ''Journal of World History'' Volume 10, Issue # 1, Spring 1999 pages 96-97.〕 After leaving Pedro in Constantinople, Gobineau traveled to Rome for a private audience with Pope Pius IX.〔Blue, Gregory "Gobineau on China: Race Theory, the "Yellow Peril" and the Critique of Modernity" pages 93-139 from ''Journal of World History'' Volume 10, Issue # 1, Spring 1999 page 97.〕 During his visit to Rome, Gobineau met and befriended the German composer Richard Wagner.〔Blue, Gregory "Gobineau on China: Race Theory, the "Yellow Peril," and the Critique of Modernity" pages 93-139 from ''Journal of World History'' Volume 10, Issue # 1, Spring, 1999 page 115〕 Wagner was greatly impressed with the ''Essai sur l'inégalité des races humaines'' and he used his newspaper the ''Bayreuther Blätter'' to popularize Gobineau's racial theories in Germany.〔Blue, Gregory "Gobineau on China: Race Theory, the "Yellow Peril," and the Critique of Modernity" pages 93-139 from ''Journal of World History'' Volume 10, Issue # 1, Spring, 1999 page 115〕 Gobineau in his turn was greatly impressed with Wagner's music and unusually for a Frenchman, Gobineau became a member of the Bayreuth Circle.〔Blue, Gregory "Gobineau on China: Race Theory, the "Yellow Peril," and the Critique of Modernity" pages 93-139 from ''Journal of World History'' Volume 10, Issue # 1, Spring, 1999 page 115〕 Despite his pride in being French, Gobineau who did not approve of the French Revolution often attacked many aspects of French life under the Third Republic as reflecting "democratic degeneration"-namely the chaos that he believed that resulted when the mindless masses were allowed political power-which meant that critical reception of Gobineau in France was very mixed.〔 Gobineau questioned the belief that the black and yellow races belong to the same human family as the white race and share a common ancestor. Trained neither as a theologian nor a naturalist, and writing before the popular spread of evolutionary theory, Gobineau took the Bible to be a true telling of human history. In his ''An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races,'' he ultimately accepts the prevailing Christian doctrine that all human beings shared the common ancestors Adam and Eve (monogenism as opposed to polygenism). But, he suggested that "nothing proves that at the first redaction of the Adamite genealogies the colored races were considered as forming part of the species"; and "We may conclude that the power of producing fertile offspring is among the marks of a distinct species. As nothing leads us to believe that the human race is outside this rule, there is no answer to this argument."〔 Gobineau believed the white race was superior to the other races in the creation of civilized culture and maintenance of ordered government. The American historian Geoffrey Field summarized Gobineau's work as: "Written after the Revolutions of 1848-49, the ''Essai'' was a post-mortem of the old aristocratic order in Europe, characterized by reverence for hierarchy, social status and family lineage...Superior in beauty, intellect and creative vigor, the white race (and especially its illustrious Aryan branch) was the bearer of culture and civilization, responsible for the triumphs of the past. But the process of civilization inevitably involved miscegenation with inferior breeds, leading to a slow debilitation of the noble race over centuries. For Gobineau, history revealed the tragic "fall" of man from a presumed racial purity into a degenerate condition of racial corruption and mongrelization. Pockets of Aryan blood remained, especially among the nobility, but decline was inevitable and irreversible.Gobineau thought that the development of civilization in other periods was different from his own and speculated that other races might have superior qualities in those civilizations. But, he believed European civilization represented the best of what remained of ancient civilizations and held the most superior attributes capable for continued survival. His primary thesis was that European civilization flowed from Greece to Rome, and then to Germanic and contemporary civilization. He thought this corresponded to the ancient Indo-European culture, also known as "Aryan," which included groups classified by language, for example the Celts, Slavs and the Germans.〔Among the groups which Gobineau classified as Aryan were the Hindus, Iranians, Hellenes, Celts, Slavs, and the Germans. 〕 Gobineau later came to use and reserve the term Aryan only for the "German race" and described the Aryans as 'la race germanique'.〔''The Cambridge Companion to Tacitus'', Page 294, A. J. Woodman - 2009. The white race was defined as beautiful, honourable and destined to rule; are 'cette illustre famille humaine, la plus noble'.74 Originally a linguistic term synonymous with Indo-European,7S 'Aryan' became, not least because of the ''Essai'', the designation of a race, which Gobineau specified as 'la race germanique'〕 By doing so he presented a racist theory in which Aryans—that is Germans—were all that was positive〔So that the reader not be left in ignorance as to who the Aryans are, Gobineau stated, ''La race germanique était pourvue de toute l'énergie de la variété ariane''. We see, then, that Gobineau presents a racist theory in which the Aryans, or Germans, are all that is good. ''Comparative literature.'' by American Comparative Literature Association.; Modern Language Association of America. Comparative Literature Section.; University of Oregon. 1967, page 342〕 Gobineau originally wrote that, given the past trajectory of civilization in Europe, white race miscegenation was inevitable and would result in growing chaos. Despite his claims that whites were the most beautiful of his races, Gobineau believed somewhat contradictory that Asian and black women had immense powers of sexual attraction over white men (for reasons that he never explained Gobineau did not attribute Asian and black men with the same sexual powers he had attributed to black and Asian women), and that whenever whites were in close proximity to blacks and Asian, the result was always miscegenation to the determent of the whites. Gobineau attributed much of the economic turmoil in France to pollution of races. Later in his life, with the spread of British and American civilization and the growth of Germany, he altered his opinion to believe that the white race could be saved. Wagner was fascinated by Gobineau's racial theories and much of his writings from 1876 onwards showed Gobineau's influence.〔Field, Geoffrey The Evangelist of Race The Germanic Vision of Houston Stewart Chamberlain, New York: Columbia University Press, 1981 page 152.〕 Field wrote that "Gobineau's chief work, ''Essai sur l'inégalité des races humaines'' contained a far more detailed and closely argued explanation for cultural decadence than anything Wagner had written. Indeed, this synthesis of anthropology, theology, linguistics and history was unquestionably the most impressive and ideologically coherent racial analysis produced in the pre-Darwinian era.".〔 The German-born American historian George Mosse argued that Gobineau projected all of his fears and hatreds about the French middle class and working class onto the Asians and the blacks.〔Davies, Alan ''Infected Christianity: A Study of Modern Racism'', Montreal: McGill Press, 1988 page 60.〕 Summarizing Mosse's argument, Davies argued that: "The self-serving, materialistic oriental of the ''Essai'' was really an anti-capitalist's portrait of the money-grubbing French middle class..." while "the sensual, unintelligent and violent negro" that Gobineau portrayed in the ''Essai'' was an aristocratic caricature of the French poor.〔Davies, Alan ''Infected Christianity: A Study of Modern Racism'', Montreal: McGill Press, 1988 pages 60-61.〕 In 1859 an Anglo-French dispute over the French fishing rights over the French Shore of Newfoundland led to an Anglo-French commission being sent to Newfoundland to find a resolution to the dispute. Gobineau was one of the two French commissioners dispatched to Newfoundland, an experience that he later recorded in his 1861 book ''Voyage à Terre-Neuve'' (''Voyage to Newfoundland''). In 1858, the Foreign Minister Count Alexandre Colonna-Walewski tried to sent Gobineau to the French legation in Beijing, but Gobineau objected that as a "civilized European", he had no wish to go to an Asian country like China.〔Wilkshire, Michael "Introduction: Gobineau and Newfoundland" to ''A Gentleman In The Outports: Gobineau and Newfoundland'' by Arthur de Gobineau, Ottawa: Carleton University Press, 1993 page viii.〕 As punishment, Walewski sent Gobineau to Newfoundland, telling him he would be fired from the Quai d'Orsay if he refused the Newfoundland assignment.〔Wilkshire, Michael "Introduction: Gobineau and Newfoundland" to ''A Gentleman In The Outports: Gobineau and Newfoundland'' by Arthur de Gobineau, Ottawa: Carleton University Press, 1993 page ix.〕 Gobineau hated Newfoundland, writing to a friend in Paris on 26 July 1859: "This is an awful country. It is very cold, there is almost constant fog, and one sails between pieces of floating ice of enormous size."〔Wilkshire, Michael "Introduction: Gobineau and Newfoundland" to ''A Gentleman In The Outports: Gobineau and Newfoundland'' by Arthur de Gobineau, Ottawa: Carleton University Press, 1993 page x.〕 While in Newfoundland, Gobineau described several of the remote fishing settlements he visited in Utopian terms, praising them as examples of how a few hardy, tough people could make a living under very inhospitable conditions.〔Gobineau, Arthur de ''A Gentleman In The Outports: Gobineau and Newfoundland'', Ottawa: Carleton University Press, 1993 page 106.〕 Gobineau's praise for Newfoundland fishermen reflected that the fact he viewed them as survivals of more or less pure Aryans triumphing over the harsh climate while also reflecting his viewpoint that those who cut themselves off from society best preserve their purity.〔Wilkshire, Michael "Introduction: Gobineau and Newfoundland" to ''A Gentleman In The Outports: Gobineau and Newfoundland'' by Arthur de Gobineau, Ottawa: Carleton University Press, 1993 page xxi.〕 In contrast, Gobineau in his dispatches back to Paris condemned the recruiting methods of the British Royal Navy based upon offering financial rewards to the sailors who enlisted as reflecting the vulgar crude, crass materialism of the British people both in Britain and even more so in British North America while he praised the recruiting methods of the French Imperial Navy based on appeals to French patriotism as reflecting the spiritual strength of the French people (Gobineau believed that ''les Anglo-Saxons'' were further down the road of racial decline than the French).〔Wilkshire, Michael "Introduction: Gobineau and Newfoundland" to ''A Gentleman In The Outports: Gobineau and Newfoundland'' by Arthur de Gobineau, Ottawa: Carleton University Press, 1993 pages xiii-xiv.〕 In his time in St. John's, a city largely inhabited by Irish immigrants, Gobineau deployed virtually every anti-Irish cliché in his reports to Paris, stating the Irish of St. John's were extremely poor, undisciplined, conniving, obstreperous, dishonest, loud, violent, and usually drunk.〔Gobineau, Arthur de ''A Gentleman In The Outports: Gobineau and Newfoundland'', Ottawa: Carleton University Press, 1993 page 104.〕 Besides for touring Newfoundland, Gobineau paid a visit to Labourer to hunt caribou, an experience that provided the basis of his autobiographical 1871 short story ''La chasse au caribou'' ("The caribou hunt"). During his time in Labourer, Gobineau encountered First Nations peoples, whom he disparagingly called ''les sauvages'' ("the savages").〔Gobineau, Arthur de ''A Gentleman In The Outports: Gobineau and Newfoundland'', Ottawa: Carleton University Press, 1993 pages 38-39, 57-61, & 165.〕 Based upon his visits to Newfoundland and Nova Scotia (the ''Gassendi'', the French Navy ship Gobineau was travelling on visited Halifax to pick up coal), Gobineau reached the conclusion that almost all people in North America were hopelessly materialistic and Western civilization only existed in Europe.〔Wilkshire, Michael "Introduction: Gobineau and Newfoundland" to ''A Gentleman In The Outports: Gobineau and Newfoundland'' by Arthur de Gobineau, Ottawa: Carleton University Press, 1993 page xiv.〕 Gobineau argued that Chinese civilization had been created by a group of Aryan conquerors from India who had brought under their heel the indigenous Malay people living there.〔Blue, Gregory "Gobineau on China: Race Theory, the "Yellow Peril," and the Critique of Modernity" pages 93-139 from ''Journal of World History'' Volume 10, Issue # 1, Spring 1999 page 104.〕 Through Gobineau had read virtually everything written in French about China, he believed that the origins of Chinese civilization were in southern China where he posited that the Aryans from India had first arrived rather than the Yellow river valley which all Chinese sources regard as the "cradle" of Chinese civilization.〔Blue, Gregory "Gobineau on China: Race Theory, the "Yellow Peril," and the Critique of Modernity" pages 93-139 from ''Journal of World History'' Volume 10, Issue # 1, Spring 1999 page 105.〕 Gobineau argued that the Aryans being a conquering elite had taken a "masculine rather feminine" approach to establishing their rule.〔Blue, Gregory "Gobineau on China: Race Theory, the "Yellow Peril," and the Critique of Modernity" pages 93-139 from ''Journal of World History'' Volume 10, Issue # 1, Spring 1999 page 105.〕 This in turn had led to a "peaceful despotism" well suited to the "Malay disposition" based on servility to the state, the capacity "to grasp the advantages of a regular and co-ordinated state organization" and an obsession with an "exclusively material well-being".〔Blue, Gregory "Gobineau on China: Race Theory, the "Yellow Peril," and the Critique of Modernity" pages 93-139 from ''Journal of World History'' Volume 10, Issue # 1, Spring 1999 page 106.〕 Through Gobineau argued that the Chinese had been able to make some progress under the influence of their Aryan elite, ultimately miscegenation led to this elite being assimilated into the "yellow" majority, and thus the Chinese were not capable of making any further progress.〔Blue, Gregory "Gobineau on China: Race Theory, the "Yellow Peril," and the Critique of Modernity" pages 93-139 from ''Journal of World History'' Volume 10, Issue # 1, Spring 1999 page 108.〕 For Gobineau, the crucial moment occurred in 246 BC when Qin Shi Huang, the "First Emperor" unified all of the Chinese states into one.〔Blue, Gregory "Gobineau on China: Race Theory, the "Yellow Peril," and the Critique of Modernity" pages 93-139 from ''Journal of World History'' Volume 10, Issue # 1, Spring 1999 page 108.〕 Gobineau argued that Qin had destroyed the "feudal" system created by the ancient Aryan conquerors and replaced it with "imperial leveling" that ended the Aryan elite; Gobineau wrote "There was only this innovation, great nonetheless in itself, that this last trace of independence, of personal dignity as understood in the Aryan manner had disappeared forever before the definitive invasions of the Yellow Type (jaune'' )".〔Blue, Gregory "Gobineau on China: Race Theory, the "Yellow Peril," and the Critique of Modernity" pages 93-139 from ''Journal of World History'' Volume 10, Issue # 1, Spring 1999 page 108.〕 As such, Gobineau argued that the Chinese were a static people incapable of change and that essentially that nothing significant had occurred in China since 246 BC and his time.〔Blue, Gregory "Gobineau on China: Race Theory, the "Yellow Peril," and the Critique of Modernity" pages 93-139 from ''Journal of World History'' Volume 10, Issue # 1, Spring 1999 page 108.〕 Furthermore, Gobineau argued that the Chinese were fundamentally a materialist people devoid of any sort of spirituality.〔Blue, Gregory "Gobineau on China: Race Theory, the "Yellow Peril," and the Critique of Modernity" pages 93-139 from ''Journal of World History'' Volume 10, Issue # 1, Spring 1999 page 108.〕 Gobineau argued that the Chinese ideal of a "gentleman scholar" as the supreme example of what a Chinese man should be like while at the same time the low social prestige of soldiers within China reflected what Gobineau disparaging saw as the materialist ordination of the Chinese.〔Blue, Gregory "Gobineau on China: Race Theory, the "Yellow Peril," and the Critique of Modernity" pages 93-139 from ''Journal of World History'' Volume 10, Issue # 1, Spring 1999 pages 108-109.〕 By contrast, Gobineau argued that Aryans were first and foremost warriors, which Gobineau approvingly explained why soldiers had such high social prestige in Europe.〔Blue, Gregory "Gobineau on China: Race Theory, the "Yellow Peril," and the Critique of Modernity" pages 93-139 from ''Journal of World History'' Volume 10, Issue # 1, Spring 1999 pages 108-109.〕 Gobineau wrote with contempt that because of their materialism, for the Chinese happiness was to be found via having sufficient food to keep oneself alive and sufficient clothing to avoid public nudity.〔Blue, Gregory "Gobineau on China: Race Theory, the "Yellow Peril," and the Critique of Modernity" pages 93-139 from ''Journal of World History'' Volume 10, Issue # 1, Spring 1999 page 109.〕 Gobineau did not believe in the freedom of the press as he believed that ordinary people needed to be monitored by the state, but he argued that freedom of the press was possible in China because the "exclusively utilitarian" nature of the Chinese meant unlike in the West, there was no-one in China willing to fight and die for their ideas.〔Blue, Gregory "Gobineau on China: Race Theory, the "Yellow Peril," and the Critique of Modernity" pages 93-139 from ''Journal of World History'' Volume 10, Issue # 1, Spring 1999 page 109.〕 Gobineau wrote that as long the Chinese population was well provided for, no Chinese "would bother to confront police truncheons for the greater glory of a political abstraction".〔Blue, Gregory "Gobineau on China: Race Theory, the "Yellow Peril," and the Critique of Modernity" pages 93-139 from ''Journal of World History'' Volume 10, Issue # 1, Spring 1999 page 109.〕 Along the same lines, Gobineau was dismissive of Chinese culture, which he argued was "without beauty and dignity".〔Blue, Gregory "Gobineau on China: Race Theory, the "Yellow Peril," and the Critique of Modernity" pages 93-139 from ''Journal of World History'' Volume 10, Issue # 1, Spring 1999 page 109.〕 Gobineau wrote that Chinese were "lacking in sentiments beyond the humblest notion of physical utility", and that Chinese Confucianism was a "resume of practices and maxims strongly reminiscent of what the moralists of Geneva and their educational books are pleased to recommend as the ''nec plus ultra'' of the good: economy, moderation, prudence, the art of making a profit and never a loss".〔Blue, Gregory "Gobineau on China: Race Theory, the "Yellow Peril," and the Critique of Modernity" pages 93-139 from ''Journal of World History'' Volume 10, Issue # 1, Spring 1999 pages 109-110.〕 Gobineau had been stationed in Geneva early in his diplomatic career, and during his time there had developed an intense, visceral hatred of the Swiss middle class, Calvinism, and of Swiss democracy, and his attempt to associate Confucian values with Calvinist values was definitely meant to be an insult to both.〔Blue, Gregory "Gobineau on China: Race Theory, the "Yellow Peril," and the Critique of Modernity" pages 93-139 from ''Journal of World History'' Volume 10, Issue # 1, Spring 1999 page 110.〕 Gobineau wrote that all Chinese literature was "puerile" as the Chinese lacked the powers of the imagination that allowed Westerners to write great novels, that Chinese theater was "flat" and Chinese poetry was "ridiculous".〔Blue, Gregory "Gobineau on China: Race Theory, the "Yellow Peril," and the Critique of Modernity" pages 93-139 from ''Journal of World History'' Volume 10, Issue # 1, Spring, 1999 pages 110-111.〕 Gobineau declared that the "great Chinese scientific works" were "verbose compilations" lacking in the analytic rigor, which Gobineau stated that whites alone were capable of achieving.〔Blue, Gregory "Gobineau on China: Race Theory, the "Yellow Peril," and the Critique of Modernity" pages 93-139 from ''Journal of World History'' Volume 10, Issue # 1, Spring, 1999 pages 110-111.〕 Gobineau asserted that the Chinese were incapable of science because "the spirit of the yellow race is neither profound nor insightful to attain this quality (excellence ) reserved for the white race".〔Blue, Gregory "Gobineau on China: Race Theory, the "Yellow Peril," and the Critique of Modernity" pages 93-139 from ''Journal of World History'' Volume 10, Issue # 1, Spring, 1999 page 111.〕 Gobineau believed that China was a warning to the West of the perils of "democracy"-by which Gobineau meant meritocracy.〔Blue, Gregory "Gobineau on China: Race Theory, the "Yellow Peril," and the Critique of Modernity" pages 93-139 from ''Journal of World History'' Volume 10, Issue # 1, Spring, 1999 page 112.〕 Gobineau argued that because the Chinese state had attempted to promote education for the masses, that the rule by the mandarins was meritocratic, and the exams to become a mandarin were open to all literate men, this reflected the racially "stagnant" character of the Chinese.〔Blue, Gregory "Gobineau on China: Race Theory, the "Yellow Peril," and the Critique of Modernity" pages 93-139 from ''Journal of World History'' Volume 10, Issue # 1, Spring, 1999 page 112.〕 Gobineau believed that the best form of government was that had existed in ''Ancien Régime'' France with rule by a hereditary aristocratic elite in ordered, hierarchical society. As such, Gobineau was extremely opposed to classical liberalism with its celebration of meritocracy, and he used the example of China as an warning about where classical liberals were taking the West towards.〔Blue, Gregory "Gobineau on China: Race Theory, the "Yellow Peril," and the Critique of Modernity" pages 93-139 from ''Journal of World History'' Volume 10, Issue # 1, Spring, 1999 page 112.〕 Gobineau wrote that the supposed destruction of the Aryan elite by Qin in 246 BC was "a fact absolutely similar to what took place, ''chez nous'' in 1789, when the innovating spirit saw as its first necessity the destruction of the ancient territorial subdivisions (France )".〔Blue, Gregory "Gobineau on China: Race Theory, the "Yellow Peril," and the Critique of Modernity" pages 93-139 from ''Journal of World History'' Volume 10, Issue # 1, Spring, 1999 page 112.〕 About the demands of classical liberals for universal education, Gobineau wrote: "Popular education everywhere promoted, emphasis on the well-being of subjects, complete liberty in the allotted sphere, the fullest industrial and agricultural development, production at the most modest prices, rendering all European competition difficult for the ordinary necessities of life like cotton, silk and pottery. These are the incontestable results of which the Chinese system can boast."〔Blue, Gregory "Gobineau on China: Race Theory, the "Yellow Peril," and the Critique of Modernity" pages 93-139 from ''Journal of World History'' Volume 10, Issue # 1, Spring, 1999 pages 112-113.〕Later on, in an essay criticizing the Third Republic, Gobineau wrote that most people republic meant the "chimera of liberty" via the "rule of merit", where all would be given the equal chances to rise through their abilities.〔Blue, Gregory "Gobineau on China: Race Theory, the "Yellow Peril," and the Critique of Modernity" pages 93-139 from ''Journal of World History'' Volume 10, Issue # 1, Spring, 1999 page 114〕 Gobineau contemptuously wrote that "principle of 1789" was no different from the rule by mandarins in China, and predicated that if the republic continued to exist long enough that the French would "degenerate" down to the same level as the Chinese.〔Blue, Gregory "Gobineau on China: Race Theory, the "Yellow Peril" and the Critique of Modernity" pages 93-139 from ''Journal of World History'' Volume 10, Issue # 1, Spring, 1999 page 114.〕 Paradoxically, although Gobineau saw hope in the expansion of European power, he did not support the creation of commercial empires with their attendant multicultural milieu. He concluded that the development of empires was ultimately destructive to the "superior races" that created them, since they led to the mixing of distinct races. Instead, he saw the later period of the 19th century imperialism as a degenerative process in European civilization. He continually referred to past empires in Europe and their attendant movement of non-white peoples into European homelands, in explaining the ethnography of the nations of Europe. According to his theories, the mixed populations of Spain, most of France and Italy, most of Southern Germany, most of Switzerland and Austria, and parts of Britain derived from the historical development of the Roman, Greek, and Ottoman empires, which had brought the non-Aryan peoples of Africa and the Mediterranean cultures to western and northern Europe. He believed that the populations of southern and western Iran, southern Spain and Italy consisted of a degenerative race arising from miscegenation, and that the whole of north India consisted of a "yellow" (Asian) race. In the last years of his life Gobineau was consumed with the fear of what was later to be known as the "Yellow Peril"-believing that European civilization would soon be destroyed by a Chinese invasion.〔Blue, Gregory "Gobineau on China: Race Theory, the "Yellow Peril," and the Critique of Modernity" pages 93-139 from ''Journal of World History'', Volume 10, Issue # 1, Spring 1999 pages 115-116.〕 In 1881, Gobineau published an article in Richard Wagner's newspaper the ''Bayreuther Blätter'' entitled "Ein Urteil über die jetzige Weltage" which was translated into German by Cosima Wagner and whose introduction was written by her husband warning that the Chinese would soon "overwhelm" and destroy Western civilization.〔Blue, Gregory "Gobineau on China: Race Theory, the "Yellow Peril," and the Critique of Modernity" pages 93-139 from ''Journal of World History'' Volume 10, Issue # 1, Spring 1999 pages 116-117.〕 Gobineau praised racist laws meant to restrict Chinese immigration to the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Hawaii and Australia as a good first step, but warned that "European civilization" was so rotten by miscegenation that it was only a matter of time before the Chinese destroyed the West.〔Blue, Gregory "Gobineau on China: Race Theory, the "Yellow Peril," and the Critique of Modernity" pages 93-139 from ''Journal of World History'' Volume 10, Issue # 1, Spring 1999 page 117.〕 Gobineau gave artistic expression to his vision in his 1881 epic poem ''Amadis'' where the a small elite of Aryan aristocrats ruling Europe are threatened by a revolt of racially inferior commoners which allows the Chinese to invade Europe; despite the fact that the Aryan heroes are superior in every respect to the Chinese "horde", the Aryans are finally overwhelmed by sheer force of numbers and are exterminated.〔Blue, Gregory "Gobineau on China: Race Theory, the "Yellow Peril," and the Critique of Modernity" pages 93-139 from ''Journal of World History'' Volume 10, Issue # 1, Spring 1999 page 117.〕 In ''Amadis'', the extermination of the Aryans marks the destruction of everything good in the world and is the beginning of a new dark age. In 1884, the French efforts to conquer Vietnam led to war breaking out between France and China. The Sino-French War led to immediate revival of interest in Gobineau's anti-Asian writings in France, and several French newspapers reprinted the French original of Gobineau's 1881 article in the ''Bayreuther Blätter'' together with a translation of Wagner's introduction warning about the imminent Chinese threat to European civilization.〔Blue, Gregory "Gobineau on China: Race Theory, the "Yellow Peril," and the Critique of Modernity" pages 93-139 from ''Journal of World History'' Volume 10, Issue # 1, Spring 1999 pages 118-119.〕 Likewise, the Franco-Chinese war led to the ''Essai sur l'inégalité des races humaines'' becoming popular in France.〔Blue, Gregory "Gobineau on China: Race Theory, the "Yellow Peril," and the Critique of Modernity" pages 93-139 from ''Journal of World History'' Volume 10, Issue # 1, Spring 1999 page 118.〕 The book had been published in four volumes (each about 1, 000 pages long) in 1853-55 and remained out of print for decades. In 1884, just after the war with China began, the second edition and third editions of the ''Essai sur l'inégalité des races humaines'' were published in Paris, which was a direct result of the war as many French people suddenly become interested in a book that had such an unflattering picture of Asians.〔Blue, Gregory "Gobineau on China: Race Theory, the "Yellow Peril," and the Critique of Modernity" pages 93-139 from ''Journal of World History'' Volume 10, Issue # 1, Spring 1999 page 118.〕 The American historian Gregory Blue wrote that for Gobineau China was a "deadly, soulless menace" to the "white race", the merciless agent of impeding destruction of everything good in the world.〔Blue, Gregory "Gobineau on China: Race Theory, the "Yellow Peril," and the Critique of Modernity" pages 93-139 from ''Journal of World History'' Volume 10, Issue # 1, Spring 1999 page 133.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Arthur de Gobineau」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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