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Logic Taught by Love

to improve the world, either by converting Jews to religions cast in the Trinitarian mould, or by depriving us of the adjuncts to faith which it is natural for us to seek, belong essentially to the same order of reasoners as those who fancy that boys are made more refined by being taught to pose in effeminate attitudes, or girls more logical by being forbidden to do fancy-embroidery. Those turn out best-bred who respect the individuality on each side, and yet are willing to learn from each other. The old fable of Narcissus tells the fate of those who can love nothing but the reflection of themselves.

The stern spiritual discipline which has made Jews indifferent to much which we think essential to religion, the sentimental and somewhat hysterical weakness which characterizes Aryan pietism, are among the means by which the differentiation is being effected; while sufficient proof that it is still incomplete is afforded by the fact that misunderstandings still arise. And perhaps no antagonism could prove ultimately to have been so great a misfortune, as would be the arresting of the differentiation before it is complete. Europe is quarrelling with imperfectly developed Jews; but it long ago lost its heart to the typical Jew, as seen in Vision, though as yet it knows not what it was that it saw. Christ, as he exists in Christian tradition, is not so much the historical Jesus as personified Judaism. The simple manliness of Jewish piety has so dazzled us, that we have invented a whole system of theology to account for its difference from our own more effeminate graces. Underlying all forms of Christian doctrine, there is the deep human truth that Gentile thought,