Bernier and Kant carefully illustrated in their essays the basic format for what race is and the unique ways it would be classified. Herder, a student of Kant’s Physical Geography lecture declares that race derives from a difference in ancestry that does occur here or includes the most diverse races within each of these regions in each of these colors. This was such a rebellious thing to say but it became applaudable with his orderly reasoning of a “Divine Intellect”. Herder takes not a scientific, but religious approach when explaining his theory that the whole course of a human being’s life consists on transformations. The continuous use of religious based pronouns emphasize his attempt to explain how “One and the same species is humankind on Earth.” Herder preaches, “He stages and destroys, refines the figures, and revises them after He has transformed the world around them.”
Christianity brings Herder to many fixed conclusions but I thought the most relevant point to that Herder made was that man is created in the image of God. The transformations that regional differences were made by Kant were rejected by Herder his modified approach. Herder mentions a valid argument when questioning why at one point in history elephants lived in Siberia and North America, not Africa. The same can be said for human beings which alters the correlation between environmental differences and race. Herder evaluates Kant by questioning, “Who is capable of classifying four or five races on the bases of their geological and environmental differences?” If Herder’s theory is correct and God is control of these transformations that have taken place in humans, then wouldn’t our racial differences be continuos? If this is the case, then the explanation of what Kant believes race is becomes invalid.
“An eighty-year old man has renewed his entire body at least 24 times. Who can follow the change in matter and it’s forces throughout the whole human realm on earth in all of the causes of it’s changing. For no wave in the stream of time is the same as the other.”
The best way to know what to expect from the future is to observe our past. If one is to take note of the natural catastrophes that have taken place (i.e: earthquakes,floods,droughts,plagues, floods) there must be some correlation to a shift in culture. If the shift is large enough, the result could possibly be an alteration of an overall culture. The past has shown that humans will adapt to settlements that have undergone treacherous natural occurrences. With this continuous geographical shift Herder mentions,“If humans lived in these areas at that time, how different they were from those that live there now!” This is where I find myself asking yet another perplexing question regarding our future. In some way, history is bound to repeat itself. I’m not saying that there is a modern day Ice Age predetermined for humanity but if Herder’s theory is correct, then there should be another natural catastrophe that will rearrange our accustomed lifestyle somewhat like our ancestors experienced but also vastly new and different. Given this, what NEW race can we expect or prepare for?
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