Christoph Meiners

Christoph Meiners (31 July 1747 – 1 May 1810) was a German philosopher and historian, born in Warstade. He supported the polygenist theory of human origins. He was a member of the Göttingen School of History.

Chistoph Meiners was born in Warstade (now a part of Hemmoor) near Otterndorf. He started at a gymnasium in Bremen in 1763, and was a student at Göttingen from 1767 to 1770. In 1772 he became extraordinary professor, and in 1775 full professor, of Weltweisheit at the University of Göttingen. From 1788 to 1791 he co-edited the anti-Kantian journal Philosophische Bibliothek. He wrote on comparative history and cultural history. He is now known mostly for his critical attitude towards Immanuel Kant, Mary Wollstonecraft and the concept of Enlightenment. He died in Göttingen. He later became the favorite intellectual ancestor of the Nazis.

Meiners was a polygenist: he believed that each race had a separate origin. He was a very early practitioner of scientific racism. Meiners studied the physical, mental and moral characteristics of each race, and built a race hierarchy based on the evidence that was considered common in scientific and anthropological circles at the time. Meiners split mankind into two divisions which he labeled the "beautiful White race" and the "ugly Black race". In Meiners book The Outline of History of Mankind he claimed that a main characteristic of race is either beauty or ugliness. He viewed only the white race as beautiful. He considered ugly races as inferior, immoral and animal like. He claimed that the black ugly peoples are distinct from the white beautiful peoples by their sad lack of virtue and their terrible vices.

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