The contrast was very well seen in the Dreyfus case, when the old type of extremist was still strong. He would not look at the evidence against Dreyfus, he would not, if he could help it, mention his race. All he knew was that Dreyfus was and must in the nature of things be innocent and that all the diverse men who testified against him were wicked conspirators. The new type of extremist, then but rising and not yet master, would not listen to the strong evidence in Dreyfus' favour, refused to re-examine the case after the chief witness had been found guilty of forgery, made up his mind that Dreyfus was necessarily guilty and was convinced that all his supporters were dupes or knaves. The mere fact that the Jews exist, let alone that they are powerful, poisons life for such a man. He is led by his lop-sided enthusiasm into the most ridiculous errors. In this country every name of German origin at once suggests a Jew to him. Every financial operation, especially if it be of doubtful morality, must certainly have a Jew behind it; wherever a number of partners, Jewish and non-Jewish, are engaged in some bad work (as, for instance, in one of our innumerable Parliamentary scandals), a Jew must always for this sort of person be the prime mover and the evil genius of the whole. As is the case with every other mania, this mania rapidly obscures the general vision of its victim. His prejudices soon lose proportion altogether. He comes to see the Jew in everything and everywhere, and to accept confidently propositions which he would himself see to be contradictory, could he give a moment's quiet thought to the matter. Thus I have heard on all sides in the last few years these strange assertions proceeding from the same source, yet obviously incompatible one with the other: That modern scepticism was Jewish in its origin; that modern superstition, our modern necromancy and crystal gazing and all the rest of it, was Jewish in its origin; that the evils of democracy are all Jewish in their origin; that the evil of tyrannical government, in Prussia, for instance, was Jewish in its origin; that the pagan perversions of bad modern art were Jewish in their origin; that the puerility of bad church furniture was due to Jewish dealers; that the Great War was the product of Jewish armament firms; that the anti-patriotic appeals which weakened the allied armies came from Jewish sources--and so on. It is indeed true that there is a Jewish quality in all these diverse and contradictory things where a Jew mixes in them; just as there is a Scotch, or French, or English quality when a Scot, a Frenchman, or an Englishman is the agent. But to ascribe the whole boiling to the Jew, and to make him the conscious origin of all, is a contradiction in terms. The Anti-Semite is a man so absorbed in his subject that he at last loses interest in any matter, unless he can give it some association with his delusion, for delusion it is.