Two theories, proceeding from very different states of mind, the opposite each of the other, but each exclusive of any solution, spring from the root idea that there is something inexorably malignant in the relations between the Jew and his surroundings. In the one form this takes the shape of affirming that the unfortunate Jew is invariably ill-treated by his wicked hosts and always will be so ill-treated. In the other it takes the form of saying that the wicked Jew will always be conspiring and trying to hurt his good, kind hosts and always will be so conspiring. In either case it is no good trying to find a solution, for it is affirmed that the quarrel is in the nature of things. People will say to one, "Why attempt to change something which cannot be changed? Why talk of your material as something other than what it is? Cats will always quarrel with dogs, and if you want to avoid a quarrel the only thing to do is to keep the dogs and cats of your household apart." It is precisely because I do not believe either form of this idea to be true that I have sought for a solution. I do not believe either form of doctrine to be true because the evidence is against it. That evidence is to my hand and can be examined by my own unaided powers, as it can be examined by any other person in our modern society. I cannot recollect one single case in all the hundreds of Jews I have come across--not one in the score whom I can count as intimates--who showed any sign of this malignant hatred. I have heard many outbursts of exasperation which, when we think of the past, are natural enough; but of some persistent and evil desire to hurt those among whom they live, some instinctive desire unconnected with past suffering, and acting as a sort of instinct, I have seen no trace. If such were to be discovered in some exceptional Jew out of a large acquaintance I should conclude that it might be true of a small minority, but common sense and common experience are sufficient to show that it does not affect the mass. Of the causes of friction, even of acute friction, which I have enumerated in former pages, there is the habit of secrecy, there is the mutual contempt, arising in each from a sense of superiority over the other; there is the quarrel between what is national and what is international, between what is of us and what is alien. There are, in a word, plenty of elements suggesting accidental antagonism, but of intrinsic antagonism there is no evidence--there is no evidence, I mean, that the Jews would still desire to destroy a society in which they found themselves at their ease.