Editor’s Note:

In this text, Evola distinguishes the race of the body (biological race–race as such, in my opinion), the race of the soul (which I would call non-hereditary character types, shaped by culture, ideas, and education), and race of the spirit, which has to do with “vertical,” “superhistorical” heredity, i.e., man’s alleged descent from superhuman or divine beings. It is unfortunate that Evola speaks disparagingly of evolution as a “myth” — only to replace it with genuine myths of a process of “devolution” from divine beings which do not deign to leave a trace in the fossil record. It bears an uncomfortable likeness to Biblical creationism.

There is, however, a form of the Traditional, cyclical view of history as decline from a Golden Age to a Dark Age which is consistent with what we know of human biological and cultural evolution, namely the philosophy of history of the Neapolitan sage Giambattista Vico (1668–1744) who argued, against the Traditionalists, that the superior wisdom of the Golden Age did not consist of the intuitive knowledge of highly spiritual beings but rather the passions and instincts of primitives which were, nevertheless, superior in their barbaric vitality–in their underlying harmony with nature–to the later products of more reflective civilizations.

[GD: Article follows here]

The Different Meanings of Race

The racialist consideration of man cannot stop at a mere biological level, otherwise it would be worthy of the accusation by the Jew Trotsky of it being just “zoological materialism.”

It is also not enough to say, like Walter Gross, that “in the concept of race we intend that completeness of human life, in which body and spirit, matter and soul, are fused in a superior unity,” and that deciding whether one of the two things is determined by the other. Whether bodily form is determined by the soul or vice-versa is an extrascientific, metaphysical problem which is not a consideration of racialism.

Even less satisfactory is the following statement by Alfred Rosenberg: “We do not agree with the proposition that the spirit creates the body, nor with the inverse, that the body creates the spirit. There is no clear boundary between the spiritual world and the physical world: both constitute an indivisible whole.”

If race is no longer to be considered a myth, but as the object of a doctrine, then one cannot stop at these levels.

The concept of race assumes different meanings not only as applied man and to animal species, but also regarding different human types. We therefore must lay a primary distinction: that which lies between the “races of nature” and those of a higher, more human and spiritual, sense.