Page:You Gentiles (1924) by Maurice Samuel 1895-1972.djvu/28

You Gentiles —not a mere conviction, not a mere language, not a mere difference of national or religious allegiance. With the best will on both sides, successful adaptation to each other will always be insecure and transient. Waves of liberality may affect our mutual relationship from time to time: we shall delude ourselves—you and we—with the belief that we have bridged the gulf. Many will pass their lives in that delusion. But, as has come to pass so often, the difference which is deeper than will, deeper than consciousness, will assert itself. There is a limit to our moral or mental possibilities. We cannot climb out of ourselves. The complete and permanent reconciliation of your way of life with ours is beyond that limit.

Of course it is the frequent theme of editors, of popular professional optimists and of gullible and facile publicists that the path to reconciliation between Jew and gentile is the path of knowledge—or, rather, of information. The more you know concerning our history, our customs, our beliefs, the nearer 24