. . .f nationality has awakened self-consciousness in all the peoples; it teaches them to regard their peculiarities as qualities, and gives them a passionate desire for independence. It could not, therefore, pass over the educated Jews without leaving a trace. It induced them to remember who and what they are; to feel themselves, what they had unlearned, a people apart; and to demand for themselves a normal national destiny. This slow and painful work of the recovery of their national individuality was rendered easier by the attitude of the peoples, who eliminated them from among themselves as a foreign element, and put stress, without consideration or courtesy, on the real and imaginary contrasts, or at least differences, between themselves and the Jews.

The principle of nationality has, in its exaggerations, led to excesses. It has been led astray into Chauvinism, abased to idiotic hatred of the foreigner, degraded to grotesque self-worship. From this caricature o. . . Read More