The Spaniard could not contain himself any longer.  “But no person with any intelligence believes any more in those antique theories of race!  What if there no longer existed a people of absolutely pure blood, owing to thousands of admixtures due to historical conquests!” . . .  Many Germans bore the identical ethnic marks which the professor was attributing to the inferior races.

“There is something in that,” admitted Hartrott, “but although the German race may not be perfectly pure, it is the least impure of all races and, therefore, should have dominion over the world.”

His voice took on an ironic and cutting edge when speaking of the Celts, inhabitants of the lands of the South.  They had retarded the progress of Humanity, deflecting it in the wrong direction.  The Celt is individualistic and consequently an ungovernable revolutionary who tends to socialism.  Furthermore, he is a humanitarian and makes a virtue of mercy, defending the existence of the weak who do not amount to anything.

The illustrious German places above everything else, Method and Power.  Elected by Nature to command the impotent races, he possesses all the qualifications that distinguish the superior leader.  The French Revolution was merely a clash between Teutons and Celts.  The nobility of France were descended from Germanic warriors established in the country after the so-called invasion of the barbarians.  The middle and lower classes were the Gallic-Celtic element.  The inferior race had conquered the superior, disorganizing the country and perturbing the world.  Celtism was the inventor of Democracy, of the doctrines of Socialism and Anarchy.  Now the hour of Germanic retaliation was about to strike, and the Northern race would re-establish order, since God had favored it by demonstrating its indisputable superiority.

“A nation,” he added, “can aspire to great destinies only when it is fundamentally Teutonic.  The less German it is, the less its civilization amounts to.  We represent ‘the aristocracy of humanity,’ ’the salt of the earth,’ as our William said.”

Argensola was listening with astonishment to this outpouring of conceit.  All the great nations had passed through the fever of Imperialism.  The Greeks aspired to world-rule because they were the most civilized and believed themselves the most fit to give civilization to the rest of mankind.  The Romans, upon conquering countries, implanted law and the rule of justice.  The French of the Revolution and the Empire justified their invasions on the plea that they wished to liberate mankind and spread abroad new ideas.  Even the Spaniards of the sixteenth century, when battling with half of Europe for religious unity and the extermination of heresy, were working toward their ideals obscure and perhaps erroneous, but disinterested.

All the nations of history had been struggling for something which they had considered generous and above their own interests.  Germany alone, according to this professor, was trying to impose itself upon the world in the name of racial superiority—­a superiority that nobody had recognized, that she was arrogating to herself, coating her affirmations with a varnish of false science.