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George Eliot and Judaism.
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themselves on this point? It is the sign of a sound organism that its members perform their functions unconscious of activity. No charge, therefore, can be brought against the Jews when the assertion is put forward that, as yet, they have adhered to their doctrines with absolute and unwavering fidelity, but without a definite consciousness of their national vocation. They have defended a trust, the future of which is raised and established in their eyes beyond all doubt, without subtilising concerning its peculiarities. Judaism has, certainly, at all times been more than a mere religion for its adherents. It has been for them not only a means of satisfying transcendental desires and a theory of their relations with heaven, but also their rallying-point in dispersion and the necessary condition of their existence as a state, shattered, indeed, but secretly living on in exile. Alongside of their