CHAPTER ONE

EAST AND WEST

The first thing we must do in the study we are undertaking is to determine the exact nature of the opposition that exists between the East original: "Orient" and the West original: "Occident", and first of all, for that, to specify the meaning we intend to attach to the two terms of this opposition. We could say, as a first approximation—perhaps a bit summary—that the East, for us, is essentially Asia, and that the West is essentially Europe; but even this requires some explanation.

When we speak, for example, of the Western or European mentality, using one or the other of these two words interchangeably, we mean by that the mentality proper to the European race In the early 20th-century context of this writing, "race" was often used to describe a broad cultural and linguistic group—what we might today call a "civilization"—rather than just biological descent. taken as a whole. We will therefore call "European" everything that relates to this race, and we will apply this common denomination to all individuals descended from it, in whatever part of the world they may be found: thus, Americans and Australians, to name but those, are for us Europeans, in exactly the same capacity as the men of the same race who have continued to inhabit Europe. It is quite obvious, in fact, that the act of having moved to another region, or even being born there, cannot by itself modify the race, nor, consequently, the mentality which is inherent to it; and even if the change of environment is likely to determine certain modifications sooner or later, these will only be secondary modifications, not affecting the truly essential characteristics of the race, but sometimes, on the contrary, bringing some of them out more clearly. Thus, one can easily observe, among Americans, the development pushed to the extreme of some of the tendencies that constitute the modern European mentality.

A question arises here, however, which we cannot dispense with indicating briefly: we have spoken of the European race and its own mentality; but is there truly a European race? If one means by that a primitive race, having an original unity and a perfect