I take it that the causes of this friction, with all its lamentable results, are of two kinds. There are, first, general causes for it, by which I mean those causes which are always present and are ineradicable. Their effort may be summed up in the truth that the whole texture of the Jewish nation, their corporate tradition, their social mind, is at issue with the people among whom they live. There are, next, special causes, by which I mean social actions and expressions which lead to friction and could be modified, the two chief of which are the use of secrecy by the Jews as a method of action and the open expression of superiority over his neighbours which the Jew cannot help feeling but is wrong to emphasize.
I will deal with these in their order, and first consider the general causes; though I must admit at the outset that a mere summary of them is no sufficient explanation of the phenomenon. There would seem to be something more profound and even more mysterious about it. For it will be universally conceded that, while the closest intimacy and respect is possible between individuals of the two opposing races, the moment you come to great groups, and especially to the popular instinct in the matter, the gravest friction is apparent. It is an issue too deep than to be accounted for by mere differences of temper. It is as though there were some inward force filling men on either side, not indeed with necessary hostility—it is against any such necessity that all this book is written—but certainly with conflicting ends.
It is first to be noted that most of the accusations made against the Jews by their enemies and most of the very proper rebuttals of those accusations advanced by the Jews and their defenders, miss the mark because they attempt to put in abstract form what is really something highly concrete. And this is equally true of the praise bestowed upon the Jews, of the special virtues ascribed to them and of the denials of these virtues.