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''The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century'' (''Die Grundlagen des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts,'' 1899) was the best-selling work by Houston Stewart Chamberlain. In it he advances various racist and especially ''völkisch'' antisemitic theories on how he saw the Aryan race as superior to others, and the Teutonic peoples as a positive force in European civilization and the Jews as a negative one. Chamberlain was an English germanophile who adopted German citizenship and wrote most of his works in German (on numerous subjects, from biographies to biology). ==Synopsis== Published in German, the book focuses on the controversial 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. 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 the Germanic tribes destroyed the Roman Empire, Jews and other non-Europeans already dominated it. The Germans, in this scenario, saved Western civilization from Semitic domination. Chamberlain's thoughts were influenced by the 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: Chamberlain also considered the Berbers from North Africa as belonging to the Aryan race. 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.〔See (Anne Harrington, ''Reenchanted Science: Holism in German Culture from Wilhelm II to Hitler,'' (Princeton University Press: 1999) online p. 106 )〕 Chamberlain used an old biblical notion of the ethnic make up 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.〔 (and the Jews ) Hans Jonas, reply by Robert Craft, ''New York Review of Books'', 16 April 1981 〕 During the inter-war period, certain pro-Nazi theologians 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.〔 〕 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「The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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