activity is unintelligent. With the advent of perception and volition, the physical environment becomes cognizable as of practical significance, though distinct from simple organic determination. The real world of experience is a world of personality, teleologically determined in relation to organic life. Here again it is possible to abstract from the psychological and concentrate upon the purely biological aspect, but in doing so we are moving further from reality, and substituting a comparatively empty for a fuller concept. 'The person is the whole man, and the organic aspect of him is only an abstract or partial aspect.'

An impressive passage in Dr. Haldane's book deals with the reluctance naturally felt to face the picture of an apparently gigantic and inhuman universe. But it is only a picture :

'Kant and his successors taught us to see in part how the picture is painted, and to realise that it is only one expression of human personality. . . . Those who have read Heine's Deutschland will remember his account, scintillating with the flashes of his wonderful literary genius, of Immanuel Kant, whom he represented as the Robespierre of an intellectual revolution far more wide-reaching in its effects than the French Revolution. The victim of this intellectual revolution was pictured as no mere earthly king, but the God of Hebrew and Christian tradition. "I can hear the bell. Kneel down. They are bringing the sacraments to a dying God." Heine was right in his estimate of the importance of Kant's work. But it was the God of materialism, and not of Christianity, that was dying.'

'Personality,' he concludes, is the great central fact of the universe. This world, with all that lies within it, is a spiritual world.'

We have been led somewhat far afield from the topics of biological criticism which engaged our attention at the outset. But it has seemed worth while to emphasize the contention that neither on the lower plane of chemistry and physics nor on the higher plane of biology are the arcana of nature to be fully interpreted. Only in the realm of personality can the problem of human life, and so of all terrestrial life, find its ultimate solution.

F. A. DIXEY.

ART. III.-LIBERAL JUDAISM AND THE

CHRISTIAN FAITH.

1. The Jewish Religion. By M. FRIEDLÄNDER. (London: Kegan Paul and Co. 1891.)

2. Judaism as Creed and Life. By the Rev. MORRIS JOSEPH. (London: Macmillan and Co. Ltd. 1903.) 3. A Book of Essays. By S. A. HIRSCH. (London: Published for the Jewish Historical Society of England. Macmillan and Co. Ltd. 1905.)

4. Studies in Judaism. By S. SCHECHTER, M.A., Litt.D. (London: A. and C. Black. 1896, 1908.)

5. Some Aspects of Rabbinic Theology. By S. Schechter. (London: A. and C. Black. 1909.)

6. The Synoptic Gospels. Edited with a Commentary by C. G. MONTEFIORE. Three volumes. (London: Macmillan and Co. Ltd. 1909.)

7. Outlines of Liberal Judaism. For the use of Parents and Teachers. By C. G. MONTEFIORE. (London: Mac

millan and Co. Ltd.

1912.)

8. Judaism and St. Paul. Two Essays.

By C. G. MONTE

FIORE. (London: Max Goschen. 1914.)

9. The Jewish Encyclopaedia. Art. Mediator.' (New York and London : Funk and Wagnalls Co. 1901-06.) 10. Immanence of God in Rabbinical Literature. By

J. Abelson. (London: Macmillan and Co. Ltd. 1912.)

RECENT religious developments among Jews in this country present elements of unusual interest. The orthodox Judaism of the traditional type by no means holds undisputed sway. Conservatism has of course its eminent teachers and its powerful following. There is the Zionist movement. There is the strict orthodoxy of which Dr. Friedländer may be taken as a distinguished example. In Dr. Friedländer's Manual of The Jewish Religion the ancient Creed is maintained in the purest terms of the Jewish

scholasticism. The Messianic expectation is assigned a central place. The Twelfth principle of the scholastic theologian Maimonides, 'I firmly believe in the coming of Messiah; and although he may tarry, I daily hope for his coming,'1 is accepted and defended with a careful rejection of Christianity on the one side and of Liberal Judaism on the other. Against the former it is asserted that 'those who believe in the superhuman nature of Messiah are guilty of idolatry'; against the latter it is observed that

'there are some theologians who assume the Messianic period to be the most perfect state of civilization, but do not believe in the restoration of the Kingdom of David, the rebuilding of the Temple or the repossession of Palestine by the Jews. They altogether reject the national hope of the Jews. These theologians either misinterpret or wholly ignore the teaching of the Bible, and the Divine promises made through the men of God.' 2

The question, Does the advent of Messiah and the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem imply the restoration of the Sacrificial Service? is answered in the affirmative. 'It is because of our sins that we have been deprived of the Temple, and the restoration of the Sacrificial Service will be the result of our own purification, and the consequent Divine pardon.' 3

And what is most remarkable is that Dr. Friedländer is even more orthodox than Maimonides; for while that great Scholastic taught the immortality of the soul rather than the resurrection of the dead, because the former ' appeared to him more rational,' Dr. Friedländer himself maintains that 'this may be the case, but we human beings, a combination of soul and body, are, in reality, as unable to conceive the separate existence of our soul as we are to comprehend the resurrection of our body.' Thus certainly the way is paved for belief in Resurrection of the Body.

To turn from this strictly conservative orthodoxy to the School of Liberal Judaism is to find oneself in a different atmosphere indeed. The very association of the terms Judaism and Liberal is startling. Judaism, in its

2

1 Friedländer, op. cit., p. 155. P. 161.

4

P. 162. P. 165.

stern isolation from all other faiths, has stood proverbially for tenacious adherence to the past.

Mr. Morris Joseph declares that the pious Israelite, while looking forward to the 'time when the beautiful truths about God and duty which the great souls of his race have conceived and cherished will be universally accepted by the world,' ' never dreams of the world accepting Judaism in its entirety, with all its ceremonial practices as well as its religious creed. There are elements in Judaism which are not of an universal or even of a permanent character. They are intended only for Jews, and even for them only temporarily.' 1

Thus

'the expediency of making proselytes is a matter upon which the Talmudic doctors themselves were sharply divided. . . . And this difference of opinion is reflected in Jewish thought to-day. There are Jews who disapprove of making converts and acquiesce in that step only under stress of necessity; others would welcome proselytes and make their reception easier than it is. The latter view is, however, that of the minority.' 2

As to the belief in the Messiah, in Mr. Morris Joseph's view, or in that of the school which he represents,

'History is full of Messiahs, of men who have given out sincerely or insincerely that they were Divinely chosen to resuscitate Israel's nationality, and to establish a heavenly kingdom on earth. Multitudes have believed in them and have only discovered their mistake after much suffering.'3

'It does not necessarily follow, however, that the belief in a Messiah or in the Restoration of the Jewish State is a delusion. There are millions of Jews, to say nothing of other religionists, who cling passionately to these beliefs. Among oppressed Jewish communities, such as those in Russia and the East, the belief in the national revival of Israel is a powerful solace and support under galling persecutions. Who would wilfully seal up the springs of so much blessing?

'Who would dare to tell these companies of sorrowing, trusting souls that their hope is vain, their faith a chimera? No one can say what the future has in store for us.' 4

1 Judaism, p. 165.

2 P. 167.

3 P. 169.

170.

Thus the Messianic expectation is reduced to a hope for which no basis can be given. It is tolerated on the subjective ground of its consoling power quite apart from the question whether it is objectively true. But a belief which is only tolerated in other persons as a comfortable persuasion by those who openly profess their inability to share it, has evidently lost already for the critic its motive power.

Moreover the doctrine of a personal Messiah is abandoned in favour of the doctrine of a Golden or Messianic Age.

'The question whether a Messiah is to be one of the figures of the Messianic Age, or whether Israel is to be a nation once more and the Temple in Jerusalem the religious centre of the whole world, is not a vital question. We can be equally good Jews whatever view we hold on these points. They are details on which freedom of thought can be tolerated without injury to the Faith.

'But the same cannot be said of the Messianic idea. That is one of the essentials of our Creed, without which Judaism would have neither meaning nor life. If there is no Golden Age in store for the world . . . then Judaism is vain.'1

One of the ablest advocates of Liberal Judaism is unquestionably Mr. Claude Montefiore. Liberal Judaism 2 is not in his opinion derived from Conservative Judaism by a process of subtraction. It is a separate and organic whole. In the interesting book entitled Liberal Judaism, which although intended for instructing children is better adapted for instructing their parents, Mr. Claude Montefiore, like Mr. Morris Joseph, holds that the Golden Age, the Messianic Era, the Kingdom of God, are doctrines which Judaism cannot relinquish, and which, with whatever changes of form and of manner, it must still continue to cherish and to teach.' The conception of a Personal Messiah does not appear to come within this circle of necessary doctrines. The conception of the Golden Age is declared 'inadequate without the idea of personal immortality.' 4 We are told that the ordinary arguments for immortality 2 Liberal Judaism, p. 9.

1 Judaism, p. 172.

• Ib. p. 152.

• Ib. p. 153.