Page:George Eliot and Judaism.djvu/24

 unceasingly to advance new arguments which should prove the Jews to be a peculiar people, never amalgamating with their fellow-citizens; on the other side Science was bringing to light infallible marks by which the physical peculiarity of the Jewish race should be made clearly manifest.

With the alteration in the views of Judaism entertained by the outside world, the change which came over the aspects of this question among the Jews themselves advanced pari passu, Mendelssohn, indeed, partly on account of his singular want of historical knowledge, and partly on account of his dread of arousing watchful hatred, saw himself forced to deny that his race were the inheritors of a separate Nationality. Newly awakened though it doubtless was, the pulpit oratory of the Jews at the beginning of this century is so colourless, and bears such small trace of a national stamp, that we are