The Psychology of Toleration.

By J. M. Kennedy.

It is not so very long since the first anti-Jewish riots which have taken place in England in modern times were reported from certain districts in Wales. That Wales is a hot-bed of Nonconformity is known to most people, but few, apparently, have sought to trace the connection between Nonconformity and anti-Semitic riots. Nevertheless, to the psychologist the connection is clear, and it is a connection which is of profound philosophical as well as theological significance.

If we seek to ascertain what particular characteristic has distinguished Jews from the earliest records we possess of their wanderings, we are bound to answer that it is their exclusiveness. Only one race in history has had the moral courage to cut itself off from other races. The Chosen People brought no "message" to the ends of the earth, and undertook no foreign missions. They did not seek to make converts by cunning dialectics and by appeals to the lower instincts of man, like so many mistaken Christians, or by the bolder method of the sword, like the Mohammedans. They were frankly exclusive. They regarded themselves as a high caste among the other nations and races of the earth in the same way as the Brahmans formed themselves into the highest caste among the Hindoos.

Now, this characteristic of Jews is a distinctly aristocratic trait—the trait of a superior people. But, like other aristocratic traits, it naturally fails to meet with the approval of those whose religious principles incline towards democracy in the worst sense of the word. If the characteristic of an aristocratic sect, class or race is exclusiveness, it is obvious, and is amply proved in history, that the characteristic of a democratic people is what Nietzsche has called the herd-instinct ; the passion for equalising, for lowering rather than raising, the "all men-are-brothers" spirit—the very opposite of exclusiveness. If we find Jews at one extreme we find Christians at the other. Jews, following an instinct which has unfortunately been lost in Western Europe, endeavour to keep their race pure just as the Brahmans endeavoured to keep their caste pure. But the genuine Christian cannot conceive such a thing ; he will not be satisfied until the whole world has become Christian. This means, when carried to its logical conclusion, that Christians will not be satisfied until the world has become one vast brotherhood, whose leading principle shall be equality : a torpid, dead-level sluggishness without ideals or ambitions, an equality such as the most daring Socialist never dreamed of.

Although this is the genuine Christian spirit, however, it by no means follows that all Christians conform to it. The Roman Catholics of Southern Europe never lost their magnificent paganism, the traditions of which they took with them to the New World, for centuries of Roman and Greek culture could not fail to have its effect on the development of their imagination. But in the hard, cold north, with its severe climate and difficult soil, no imagination was to be found. The environment of the inhabitants of the northern countries, on the contrary, conduced to the development of what may be called the mechanical faculties and qualities of man, and these qualities are represented, spiritually speaking, by the reason rather than by the imagination. Unleavened by the imagination brought to bear upon it in the south, the New Testament was accepted literally in the north, and with Luther the rationalists gained the victory over the more artistic quality of the imagination. A natural consequence followed—the rise to power of the most democratic sections of the Christian faith and the resultant persecution of the Jews. For at the very time when Jews were beginning to be much better treated in the southern countries, they were persecuted more bitterly than ever in the northern countries. Let the student compare, for example, the treatment meted out to them by Luther and his followers with the treatment meted out to them by one of the greatest Lutheran antagonists, Pope Sixtus V.

And it needs no very recondite study of history to explain this. The period of the Renaissance in the Latin countries restored the old aristocratic feeling of paganism, of Greek and Roman culture, but the almost coincidental period of the Reformation in the Teutonic countries simply meant that the essential principles of Christianity, which are likewise the essential principles of democracy, became much more pronounced. It is a remarkable fact that Jews have, as a general rule, thriven in aristocratic countries, i.e., countries such as Poland up to the time of the partition, where aristocratic instincts predominated—and that they have been abused in democratic countries. The average Christian instinctively recognises that the Jew is his superior in strength of character, and the result is a feeling of envy. But the aristocratic Christian, such as a Polish or English nobleman, feels that his aristocratic instincts set him on a level with the Jew, and the result is a sentiment of equality. Again, people who have disregarded their Christianity altogether (such as Hellenists like Nietzsche and Goethe), or who profess a religion which is essentially aristocratic in its character (such as Mohammedanism, or even the Japanese Bushido), feel themselves to be above even Jews, and the result is toleration. In a word, we are either beneath our enemy, on a level with him, or above him, and our psychological manifestations in the respective cases are envy, respect, and toleration. Envy springs from a feeling of inferiority, respect from a feeling of equality, and toleration from a feeling of contempt.

The psychologist, then, will not be surprised at the anti-Semitic outbreak in Wales, for the Welsh Nonconformists are typical representatives of Christianity carried to its logical conclusions. As a sect they are permeated with all the defects of Christianity—hatred of anything exclusive, superior, or aristocratic. These characteristics, of course, are also exhibited towards the German Jews by the Lutherans, for the national Church of Germany corresponds to our Nonconformist sects, and not to the more aristocratic and Roman Catholic Established Church of England. An admirer of Jews will thus find consolation in times of persecution in the fact that that very persecution is an indication that they are not degenerating to the level of the people among whom they happen to be living. On the other hand, all friends of culture, all those who are interested in raising the human race to higher levels, are glad where they see Jews respected, seeing that this indicates that the people among whom they are living are gradually discarding the teachings of Paul for the teachings of Moses, and becoming more aristocratic.

Let us see, speaking philosophically, what we mean by the words aristocratic and democratic. Taking Nietzsche as a basis, we find that he defines life as "will to power," i.e., not the mere "will to live" of the Christian-minded Schopenhauer, or the "struggle for existence" of Darwin, but a continuous, intense longing and determination to acquire power over others. This is the instinct which, although we may not be aware of it, and usually are not, underlies all forms of living things, and especially the human kind. Any principle that helps us towards the realisation of this ideal is aristocratic ; any instinct that drives us to an opposite ideal is democratic. Starting from this point of view, the point of view which Nietzsche established once and for all in modern philosophy, the distinction between the Old Testament and the New Testament, between Judaism and Christianity, between aristocracy and democracy, will become tolerably clear. The Jewish work is, in spite of apparent lapses here and there, on the whole of an aristocratic tendency ; the Christian work is of a democratic tendency.

While this is obviously not the place for a detailed examination of both Books, a few quotations will show how Christianity deprives us of one of the means of becoming aristocratic, viz., by deprecating our virile fighting qualities, and endeavouring to make us tame. "And the Lord spake unto me, saying .... 'Rise ye up, take your journey, and pass over the river Arnon : behold, I have given into thine hand Sihon the Amorite, King, of Heshbon, and his land : begin to possess it, and contend with him in battle.' " Thus the Hebrew ; while the Christian says on the contrary : "Blessed are the peacemakers : for they shall be called the children of God." Again, as we read in the Chronicles, the Jews "made war with the Hagarites, with Jetur, and Nephish, and Nodab. And they were helped against them, and the Hagarites were delivered into their hands, and all that were with them ; for they cried to God in the battle . . . there fell down many slain, because the war was of God." This is the true, virile, aristocratic spirit; but compare it with the words from Matthew ; "Blessed are the meek ; for they shall inherit the earth," " blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy." One more instance, which, if read aright, will show the thinker why our aristocrats are high-spirited and our democrats morose (''kill-joys"). Said the God of Battles : "Thou shalt observe the feast of tabernacles seven days, after that thou hast gathered in thy corn and thy wine ; and thou shalt rejoice in thy feast, thou, and thy son, and thy daughter, and thy manservant and thy maidservant, and the Levite, the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, that are within thy gates." However religiously significant this feast may be, it could only have been devised by people full of the joie de vivre. We find nothing like it in the mournful collection of Christian writings, but we do find a precept which could only have originated among the impotent : "Blessed are the poor in spirit ; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

Could the guiding principle of modern democracy be summed up more concisely ? Could the feelings of the Lutherans and the Nonconformists be more accurately described ?—"Jewish World."

Jewish Herald (Vic. : 1879 - 1920), Friday 2 February 1912, page 11