or a nation, which has largely recruited itself by adopted members,
cannot be the same as one which has never practised adoption at all, but
all whose members come of the original stock. But the influence which
the adopting community exercises upon its adopted members is far greater
than any influence which they exercise upon it. It cannot change their
blood; it cannot give them new natural forefathers; but it may do every
thing short of this; it may make them, in speech, in feeling, in
thought, and in habit, genuine members of the community which has
artificially made them its own. While there is not in any nation, in any
race, any such thing as strict purity of blood, yet there is in each
nation, in each race, a dominant element--or rather something more than
an element--something which is the true essence of the race or nation,
something which sets its standard and determines its character,
something which draws to itself and assimilates to itself all other
elements. It so works that all other elements are not co-equal elements
with itself, but mere infusions poured into an already existing body.
Doubtless these infusions do in some measure influence the body which
assimilates them; but the influence which they exercise is as nothing
compared to the influence which they undergo. We may say that they
modify the character of the body into which they are assimilated; they
do not affect its personality. Thus, assuming the great groups of
mankind as primary facts, the origin of which lies beyond our certain
knowledge, we may speak of families and races, of the great Aryan family
and of the races into which it parted, as groups which have a real,
practical existence, as groups founded on the ruling primeval idea of
kindred, even though in many cases the kindred may not be by natural
descent, but only by law of adoption. The Celtic, Teutonic, Slavonic
races of man are real living and abiding groups, the distinction
between which we must accept among the primary facts of history. And
they go on as living and abiding groups, even though we know that each