Oldal 95 [95]
OCR
to the mode of thought that was just awakening to self-discovery during the Enlightenment, so however the travels have shown how many different people live in the world, but that was not enough for the mind. (Kant 1977. 8. p.89-106.)* Kant committed this to paper in 1785. In 1775, he began another of his works with a remark that was uncommon at the time: “all humans in the whole word belong to the same natural genus” (Kant 1998 p.39. Kant 1977. 2. p.427.) With all this in mind, it is very difficult to write calmly about the insane remarks that typically circulate that Kant was a racist. Whoever says this, 1. has not read Kant (or did not understand a bit of it), 2. does not understand the 18th-century concept of “race”. (Ibid) Who or what is a stranger and how do they relate to me, the European? That the stranger is inferior was not in doubt at this time. The point of reference was the white race. Everything and everyone else was measured by that standard. (This should be evaluated according to its place, in its given age, in its given cultural context, in its given conceptual network, etc., etc.) Even if there was not complete agreement about each interpretation, there was complete consensus on this. This was demonstrated by the enduring “popularity” of Theodor Bernhardt Welter’s book Lehrbuch der Weltgeschichte für Gymnasien und höhere Bürgerschulen, which was incredibly widely read by German-speaking people: it first appeared in 1826 and by 1873 had been through 31(!) editions. We find this book even in Nietzsche's library (see Campioni’s edition of the library). Nietzsche owned the 14th edition (1854). Welter distinguishes five races among “primitive peoples.” These are: Caucasian, Mongolian, Negro, American (by which he means Native American), and Malay. All of these, of course, are contrasted with the spiritually rich and educated European. In Welter’s Lehrbuch, on the subject of the religion of the “primitive peoples,” we find that, “like the ancient Germans,” they worship gods without temples, statues, and altars, and people pray to the celestial bodies, and especially to fire. This one-sided picture is challenged by Miiller’s 45 Determination of the concept of a human race, 1785
