THE THREE GREAT PREJUDICES.

ADISCUSSION in the Nation of the late Lord Swaythling's will, by which he bound his daughters to remain faithful to the strictest Judaism on pain of losing their estates, has led to the display of some anti-Semitic fireworks from an unexpected quarter. We dislike the spirit of Lord Swayth- ling's will, which, in effect, forbids freedom of conscience, but we mistrust nearly as much the dark and mysterious hints of Mr. Chesterton that this kind of thing was only to be expected. Perhaps Mr. Chesterton is an anti-Semite for the purposes of paradox, but, at all events, his words are anti-Semitic enough, literally interpreted, to satisfy M. Edouard Drumont and to be printed in large type in the Libre Parole. According to Mr. Chesterton the Jews are "monopolists and wire-pullers, war-makers and strife-breakers, buyers of national honours and sellers of national honour " ; they wield an "international and largely secret power "; they "sit in the inmost chambers of the State, and control it by a million filaments of politics and finance " ; and " the Jew commands the sweat of Whitechapel and the blood of Spion Bop, is a traitor in France and a tyrant in England." When a man as intelligent as Mr. Chesterton parades both suspicion and prejudice even though, as we must not forget, paradox leads him too easily to these extremities— we may be certain that prejudice is not nearly done with, and that it will rear up its head for many generations to come in spite of all experience and accumulated disproofa. Prejudice is a drug, and occasionally it is a stimulant; and some of the finest acts of the noblest men have been wrought in sheer prejudice. Without prejudice, which is often the motive of honest souls, those acts would have re- mained undone. Brilliant and learned men, again, are

generally not free from prejudice, which is the human side of preternatural ability. But among all the prejudices with which we are familiar, there are three which extend from one end of Europe to the other. The first is the prejudice against Jews, the second the prejudice against Freemasons, and the third the prejudice against Jesuits. These may be called the three great prejudices.

Of these three prejudices the worst is that against Jews, because a Jew cannot help being a Jew. A man can help being a Freemason or a Jesuit; but to despise a Jew is like despising a hunchback or the victim of any other natural

accident. It is right to condemn what may be considered—

very often wrongly—Jewish qualities such as narrowness, like Lord Swaythling's, or mercilessness in trading. But it is wrong and indefensible to cultivate a prejudice against a man for being born. As Shylock says-

" Hath not a Jew eyes ? Rath not a Jew hands, organs, dimen- sions, senses, affections, passions ? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a Christian is ? if you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh if you poison us, do we not die ? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge ? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that."

The anti-Semitic prejudice grows into an obsession even more rapidly than the anti-Freemason and the anti-Jesuit prejudices, though both these are marked obsessions. On the Continent the anti-Semites have some quasi-scientific explanation of their passion : they are rebutting a Semitic immigration in the interests of pure Aryanism. But sordid spite cannot really be exalted into the dignity of a racial vindication. It is less untrue than this to say that anti- Semitism is a retrogression to the Jew-baiting of the dark ages. A skilful Jewish apologist could actually have made out a first-class case for an atavistic reversion in the dis- graceful scenes in Germany in the seventies and eighties of last century, and in the organised anti-Semitism in France a few years later. How quickly the meta- physical professors of Germany could forget what Bismarck owed to the Jews in securing the unity of Germany, and how delicately the logicians of France could incriminate the Jews when politics made it convenient to forget that Jews are disliked simply because they are too keen as competitors in the markets of the world! Perhaps all prejudice is partially founded on envy. There is an arguable case for thinking so. The Christian is certainly envious of the Jew who sells things much more frequently than he produces them, and thus appears to have the easier and more profitable job. An in- genious observer once described Jewish trade as consisting in " selling things like sponges, of which no one knows the proper price." But we disbelieve in the " filaments " of Mr. Chesterton, and find that a Jew, kindly entreated, will do vast services to his adopted country. taut when Jews are persecuted they

are driven together; they combine, and may even resemble that atrocious animal of which it was said cet animal est tres mIchant, gamut on l' attaque it se defend. In Great Britain the animal is tame, tractable, and agreeable, under a persistently

reasonable treatment.

The prejudice against Freemasonry is, of course, almost

confined to Roman Catholics. They mistrust what threatens, or seems to suspicious minds to threaten, to become an imperium in imperio. Freemasonry is a rival to an exclusive

authority. It is, moreover, secret.; its dimensions are un- known, and its rites are mystical. On the Continent it is held to be, perhaps reasonably, a rationalising society. Universal brotherhood is certainly the precise reverse of the universal autocracy of the Pope. The two systems arc mutually destructive. How odd it seems to us in Great Britain that anyone should promote Freemasonry into a monster! We think of it, perhaps, as a series of dining clubs ; as an agreeable oasis of romantic ritual in a common- place and over-sane world; or regard its lodges as existing in our social system only to rival and keep within due limits

the habitations of the Primrose League.

But the Jesuits—they come nearer home to us. Shall we avow a minute prejudice ? The stoutest Protestant can keep his eye, if we may be allowed the bull, on the religious orders which are hidden away—the Bene- dictines, Dominicans, Franciscans, and such like. But

these terrible Jesuits come out into the world by pro- fession; they mingle with us ; they wear clothes like ours; they try to convert us with intellectual arts and social graces. The Company is "a naked sword whose hilt is at Rome and whose point is everywhere." History has proved its strength. Jesuits checked the Reformation from over- flowing Europe; they engineered the counter-Reformation; they became the schoolmasters of Europe and taught their doctrines with permeating ability and commanding grace and courtesy. Dangerous people these! Yet their weakness is also plain in history. The greatness of Spain was upreared on Jesuitry and fell we know how. The France of the Grand Monarch was guided by the carefully drilled dogmatists of this autocratic Company, and when the revulsion came it was an upheaval inspired by rationalism. On the whole, history is reassuring. But the Protestant mind is never comfortable within operative radius if not of the doctrine that the end justifies the means, at any rate of an obedience which renders him who owes it perinde ac cadaver.

It is not customary for more than one of the three great prejudices to be entertained by the same person. But we know of a certain number of persona who entertain two. We once, however, knew a man—an Italian, a correspondent of the Spectator and a priest—who, astonishing as it sounds, sincerely entertained all three! His country, he declared, was in deadly peril from three malign influences—" the Jews, the Freemasons, and the Jesuits." That, we take it, is a record. We wonder whether his case is unique. We think it must be. In England, at all events, it would be impossible.