philosophical and rational. Were he to
acknowledge Christ, he would not have to change his course of life to
become a most exemplary Christian. The celebrated letter of Moses
Mendelssohn to the Swiss clergyman, Lavater, in answer to a dedication
of the latter to Mendelssohn, is probably the best exposition of the
essence of the Jewish faith that can be found. Therein he says: "We
believe that all other nations of the earth have been commanded by God
to adhere to the laws of nature. Those who regulate their conduct
according to this religion of nature and of reason are called _virtuous
men of other nations_, and are the children of eternal salvation." Such
a religion does not unsettle man's mind.

These apparent digressions are made to show what additional factors
exist, besides circumcision, to induce longevity in the Jewish race, and
that the subject may be better understood; for these reasons the above
comparisons have been made. Students of demographic science are well
aware that form of government, religion, climate, diet, habit, and
custom,--all have an important bearing on the mental and physical as
well as on the moral nature of man. To the true student of his art all
these conditions are but factors in the physical scale, and should so be
considered without fear or favor; to him the whole world is but a unit,
and the people upon its surface are but as one people, alike subject to
the leveling laws of nature, which recognize neither royalty nor
vagrant, nationality nor creed, color, condition, nor station in life or
society.

Professor Bernoulli, of Bale, found the Israelite less prolific than the
Christian;[67] subject to less mortality, greater longevity, less
still-born, less illegitimacy, less crime against the person, and less
insanity and suicide, when compared with his Christian brother--all of
which he attributes not to a superior physique or organism, but solely
to the observance of the laws of their religion and to the nature of the
same, which exercises a beneficial influence on the mind.

B. W. Richardson, in his "Diseases of Modern Life," in speaking of the
relation of race to disease, says: "Through the valuable labors of MM.
Legoyt, Hoffmann, Neufville, and Mayer, we have obtained, however, some
curious facts relative to the most widely disseminated of all races on
the earth, the Jewish. These facts show that, from some cause or causes,
this race presents an endurance against disease that does no