CONCLUSION
How much has been left unexplained, how many defects, how many regrettable signs of carelessness, how many useless repetitions, in the pamphlet which I have so long considered and so carefully revised!
But a fair-minded reader, who has sufficient understanding to grasp the spirit of my words, will not be repelled by these defects. He will rather be roused thereby to devote his intelligence and energy to the improvement of a work which is not one man's task alone.
Have I not explained obvious things and overlooked important considerations?
I have tried to meet certain objections; but I know that many more will be made, based on high grounds and low.
To the first class of objections belongs the remark, that the Jews are not the only people in the world who are in a condition of distress. Here I would reply that we may as well begin by removing some of this misery, even it it should at first be no more than our own.
It might further be said that we ought not to create distinctions between people; we ought not to raise fresh barriers; we should rather make the old disappear. But men who think in this way are amiable visionaries; and the idea of a native land will still flourish when the dust of their bones will have vanished tracelessly in the winds. Universal brotherhood is not even a beautiful dream. Antagonism is essential to man's greatest efforts.
But the Jews, once settled in their own State, would probably have no more enemies, and since prosperity enfeebles and causes them to diminish, they would soon disappear altogether. I think the Jews will always have sufficient enemies, much as every other nation has. But once fixed on their own land, it will no longer be possible for them to scatter all over the world. The diaspora cannot take place again, unless the civilization of the whole earth is destroyed; and such a consummation could be feared by none but foolish men. Our present civilization possesses weapons powerful enough for its self-defence.
Innumerable objections will be based on low grounds, for there are more low men than noble in this world. I have tried to
