tellectually and economically, as a separate body with
distinctive tendencies caused by their isolation and disabilities.
Accordingly we are able to estimate roughly the part taken by the Jews
as a body in the various movements which have made European
civilization what it is to-day. In all these movements (except
possibly one, the French Revolution) the Jews have contributed towards
European culture while sharing in it themselves. Their monotheistic
views and liturgic practices were the foundation of the medieval
Church, both in creed and deed. By their connection with their
brethren in the East and their tolerated existence, both in Islam and
in Christendom, they helped towards that transmission of Oriental
thought, science and commerce, which had so large an influence on the
Middle Ages and led on to the Renaissance and the Reform, in both of
which movements Jews had their direct part to play. So, too, in the
struggle for religious liberty and in the different stages of
toleration which lay at the root of political liberty, Jews had their
part to play, and when freed from their shackles by the French
Revolution took a leading role both in Nineteenth Century Liberalism
and in the Collectivism which has now replaced it.

But when fully emancipated, Jews no longer acted in the European world
of ideas collectively but as individuals, often choosing opposite
ideals and in most cases applying the talents thus let free to objects
apart from the general political or religious movements of the time.
Great as has been the influence of Jews in their collective capacity
on the development of European thought and culture up to the present
day, it is possible that their influence as individuals, during the
past fifty years, has been even more extensive though less
discernible, owing to the absence of any general direction to Jewish
intellectuality.

[Illustration: Signature: Joseph Jacobs]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote B: It is perhaps worth while remarking that one of the most
prominent leaders on the Jewish side in Holland, Herz Bromet, had
lived as a free Burgher in Surinam for a long time, and that the
example of America, especially New York State, was adduced in favor of
the movement. (Graetz xi, 230-1).]

[Footnote C: See Ellen Key, "Rahel Lewin."]

[Footnote D: Similar salons were held later by distinguished Jewesses
like Countess Waldegrave, in London, and Madame Raffalovitch in Paris;
and the Rothschilds have, throughout