tant
background, psycho-pathology. Some anarchists are actually insane,
while others show marked psychological deficiencies. Under our laws
as they are now framed, they cannot be restrained unless they
commit acts of violence.

As it is, our asylums are filled with this class, and that
introduces another phase of the matter. Our asylum insane are
largely recruited from the Jewish race, at least recruited in
tremendous disproportion to their number in the population. The
fact that the revolutionary movement is so largely made up of
Jewish elements furnishes an interesting confirmation of what I
have said.

The _Jewish World_, recently commenting on the "generally admitted" fact
that "the percentage of mental disorders among Jews is much greater than
among non-Jews," asks: "Is the cause inherent, that is to say, is there
a racial disposition towards degeneracy, or is it the result of the
external conditions and causes?" The writer goes on to refer to an
article in the _Zukunft_ which supports the view that the terrible
experiences of the Jews in the Middle Ages have affected their nervous
system, and therefore that the cause of mental derangement amongst them
"is not due to racial disposition, is not an ethnic principle, but is the
result of the tragic lot of the Jewish people."[860] It might perhaps
be traced more surely to the habit of brooding on that tragic lot. At
any rate, it is curious to notice that the two symptoms recognized in
the first stages of "general paralysis of the insane," the mania that
one is the object of persecution and "exalted ideas" (known in France as
the _folie des grandeurs_), are the two obsessions that the Talmud and
the Cabala with their dreams of world-domination under an avenging
Messiah have inculcated in the mind of the Jew.

But whatever are the causes of this neurosis, it is surely undesirable
that a race which exhibits it should be allowed to control the destinies
of the British Empire or indeed of any country. If "all the Jewish women
in Palestine are hysterical," presumably many of their menkind suffer
from the same disability, which certainly does not promise well for the
luckless Arab who is to live beneath their sway. How much of the trouble
that has occurred already in Palestine may be attributed to this cause
it is impossible to know. The increasing number of Jews in positions of
authority in England presents, however,