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THE MORE IMPORTANT RACIAL ELEMENTS
THAT FORM A PART OF THE PRESENT
SWEDISH NATION
AN ORIENT ATING SYNOPSIS
BY
H. LUNDBORG
IT IS VERY USUAL TO FIND THAT IN THE COMMON CONCEP*
tion, no clear distinction is made between a race, in the antropological sense
and a nation. The two ideas are used alternately and in many cases they
are regarded as equivalent. This is however wrong. It must be borne in mind
that here one has to do with dissimilar terms. By a race is understood a more
or less numerous group of human beings all possessing many similar bodily (and
mental) qualities, which display a pronounced hereditary tendency. Thus one speaks
of certain distinctive racial features, a certain racial characteristic, etc. It includes
all the qualities that continue to exist through all the ages, as long as the race
in question keeps itself pure and unmixed. By a nation again one means a larger
group of human beings who constitute a unit for themselves, distinguished by
a similar culture. The latter is determined in its turn by the traditions of its
environment and the circumstances of the community, i. e. a common language,
the same religion, common laws, etc. The characteristics of a nation therefore
are not the same thing as the characteristics of a race. The former is gradually
changed, the change depending on the one side on the different racial elements
of which a nation is composed — they might alter considerably by reason of immi»
gration and emigration, a different birth*rate and death*rate, etc. — on the other side
by the varying influences of culture on the mass of the people at different times.
Persons belonging to the same race have many similar hereditary features.
The sum of these gives the characteristics of the race in question. If the race
remains pure they appear again and again, generation after generation during
hundreds of years and even longer. New hereditary combinations arise through
the Crossing of different races.
Science has with great zeal endeavoured to investigate all possible kinds of
organisms, but stränge as it may sound humanity itself has been treated in rather
a grudging fashion. There are to be found animals and plants, of which from
a biological point of view, we have far greater knowledge than we have about
ourselves. It ought to be obvious to everyone that such a condition of things
cannot be right. Mankind of all living things ought to occupy the first place
as an object of research. We want to know what mankind is like, as a race and
as a nation — what qualities are inherited and how this inheritance is brought
about, in what degree it is susceptible to external influences, etc. These questions
connected with the life of the family, the nation, the race, which the modern
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