race

race / origin

race

The origin of the term 'race' is obscure. It may have derived from the Arabic râs, meaning 'chief', 'head', and 'origin'. The word entered Europe between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Initially 'race' was understood to signify descent of an aristocratic breed. In particular it referred to the lineages of the Frankish kings. Later, Europeans used 'race' as one of the possible translations of the Latin natio or gens; until the eighteenth century it was interchangeable with terms such as 'stock' or 'tribe'. All ethnicities, whether they were called 'peoples' or 'races' or 'tribes', were classified according to their political traditions, their geographical habitat, and climatic conditions. The European reference system of thought, being shaped by classical authors, was dominated by political paradigms and categories that paralleled natural and political phenomena. Only in the first decades of the nineteenth century did the term acquire its modern meaning. Implying that original difference is biologically founded, the concept presupposes the genealogical continuity of 'racial' traits that supposedly remain the same irrespective of environmental influences, and it includes the idea that there are correlations between outward physiognomy and mental capacity.

The Greeks' emphasis on citizenship went hand in hand with the assumption that citizens were made, not born. From the Greeks onward, the state of government and civilization were seen to be the decisive characteristics of a people; some climates favoured the development of vigour of spirit and courage, instilling a war-like disposition, while others induced a phlegmatic attitude, laziness, and the tendency to succumb to tyranny. The roots of this view were laid down in Hippocrates' Airs, Waters, Places. It was only in respect to this sort of theorizing — dubbed 'environmentalism' at the end of the nineteenth century — that the notion of descent played any role. 'Blood', by contrast, had been invested since antiquity with mythical meaning, transcending the common sphere of everyday life. In heathen Greek theory, notably in the writings of Aristotle, notions of 'species', 'genus' and physiognomy were closely linked to the concept of the 'essences', the basic elements of all matter. Therefore, Greek accounts of differing human physiognomies cannot be compared to modern-style theories of race or racism. The same applies mutatis mutandis to Roman theory.