larger than that of Christians. In journalism they have attained a redoubtable position; they may be said to control the world's Press, and through the Press they control public opinion and public policy.
Keen and subtle as the Jewish intellect has been, and occasionally powerfully constructive, from the days of Spinoza to the days of Bergson, it was, perhaps, to be expected that they should be even more successful in destruction than in construction. As has been pointed out by a French critic, Monsieur Muret, the Jews have ever been heralds of revolt. In Slav countries they have played a conspicuous part in the revolutionary movement. Even in Germany they have been in the forefront of progressive politics. The German Socialists have produced leading men of action, like Liebknecht and Bebel, but practically all the thinking heads of the social democracy have been Israelites—Lassalle and Marx, Engels and Singer, Kautsky, and Bernstein.
VIII
Of all the peculiar Jewish characteristics, the capacity for finance is the most conspicuous. Almost from the beginning of the diaspora the
