Again, the history and traditions, the faith and practice of the Jew ever placed before his eyes the absolute and immeasurable superiority of his own caste, the “Peculiar People, the Kingdom of Priests, the Holy Nation.” This exaltation justified the Hebrew in treating his brother-men as heathens barely worthy of the title of human. “Lo, the people shall dwell alone, and shall not be reckoned among the nations”--an unfriendly separation and an estrangement between man and man equally injurious to the welfare of Jew and Gentile. It grew a rank crop of hideous crimes committed in the fair name of religion--what nation but the Hebrew could exult over a Jephthah who “did with his daughter according to his own,” that is, burnt her to death before the Lord? At the same time it inculcated a rare humanity amongst its own members unknown to all other peoples of antiquity: for instance, it allowed the coward to retire from the field before battle, and, strange to say, it inculcated the very highest of moral dogmas. In 250 B.C. Sochæus, and after him the Pharisees, according to Josephus, taught that God should be served, not for gain, but for love and gratitude: hence his follower Sadík forbade the looking forward to futurity, even as Moses had neglected the doctrine with studious care. Even in the present age of the world such denegation of egotism would be a higher law. All these specialities in combination urged the Jews to dare and to do everything against all who were not of their own blood. The inevitable conclusion of such a policy was that eventually they came into collision with all around them; that they failed in the unequal combat with pagan Rome and early Christianity; that they lost the birthplace of their nationality, and were scattered far and wide over the surface of the earth. And what has happened once may happen again. The Greeks of earlier days, who like the Hebrews had but one faith and one tongue, also met periodically as a single family at Delphi, the centre of their racial area. Thus that gifted people without any inspiration effectually combined with grandeur in the worship of the gods the law of harmony which should preside over human society. But the Greeks were a sensuous and a joyous race, walking under the free heavens in the glorious lights of poetry, of art, and of beauty, and could not fail to realize the truth that society based upon reciprocal benevolence means civilization and the highest stage of human society--communion with the world. * * * * *