CHAPTER XIII THEIR DUTY Where positive causes have been found for an evil it is obvious that the cure of that evil consists in the removal of the causes, in so far as they can be removed. In the particular case of the friction between the Jewish community and their hosts the causes of that friction are the foolish and dangerous habit of secrecy and the irritating expression of superiority. The causes the Jew can remove if he will. The matter is in his own hands: we can do nothing: he can do everything. But beyond this negative duty which is incumbent upon the Jews if they would achieve a peaceful issue of the perils which menace their future, there is a positive action also incumbent upon them. They must foster, they must even propose, institutions which will the better mark them off from a society not their own and restore to them the dignity of a nation. I shall in the last chapter of this book contend that the policy leading to a solution must repose not upon direct laws of our own imagining, not upon reactions which will almost certainly prove oppressive, and almost certainly be evaded, but upon a general spirit recognizing the separate nationality of the Jews. But though this is true of every Christian Western State in which they find themselves, it is not true of their own nation. They on their side may well come forward with propositions which they have the capacity for making, because they will know how to frame them (as we cannot) after a fashion consistent with their own dignity and their own tradition. There is a beginning of such things already present in the Jewish schools, the Jewish guardians and the considerable separate organization which the Jews have openly set up for their community in this country. These beginnings have but to be extended. Those who are openly hostile to Jews will say that any proposals coming from their side will conceal a trap. "This people" (they say) "will always suggest things which will seem innocent enough and apparently do no more than define their position plainly for the future; but we shall find ourselves caught in an obligation and the Jews more our masters than ever. They will," say these objectors, "remain as they are to-day, and while they claim every privilege as a separate community, they will also insist upon the full citizenship which is incompatible with this attitude. We shall find that, whatever institutions we ask them to frame, those institutions will work not only in their favour but also heavily against us."