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A SCIENTIFIC
APPROACH
TO ETHICS
Developing Greater
Respect for Ethics in
Business and Society

Maxim Storchevoy
A Scientific Approach to Ethics
 Maxim Storchevoy

A Scientific Approach
to Ethics
Developing Greater Respect for Ethics
in Business and Society
Maxim Storchevoy
Graduate School of Management
St. Petersburg University
National Research University Higher School of Economics
St. Petersburg, Russia

ISBN 978-3-319-69112-1    ISBN 978-3-319-69113-8 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69113-8

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017960754

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of
translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval,
electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now
known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information
in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the pub-
lisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the
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Printed on acid-free paper

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature

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 Preface

From the dawn of philosophy, the question concerning the summum bonum,
or, what is the same thing, concerning the foundation of morality, has been
accounted the main problem in speculative thought, has occupied the most
gifted intellects, and divided them into sects and schools, carrying on a vigor-
ous warfare against one another. And after more than two thousand years the
same discussions continue, philosophers are still ranged under the same con-
tending banners, and neither thinkers nor mankind at large seem nearer to
being unanimous on the subject, than when the youth Socrates listened to
the old Protagoras, and asserted (if Plato’s dialogue be grounded on a real
conversation) the theory of utilitarianism against the popular morality of the
so-called sophist. (Mill, Utilitarianism, chapter 1, paragraph 1)

These words of John Stuart Mill may be repeated today. The moral
philosophy landscape is constituted by an even higher diversity of
approaches and “the same contending banners” are fluttering over the
battlefields. Sure, diversity and academic creativity are good, but real
progress in any discipline is achieved when these two virtues are comple-
mented with the discipline of the highest intellectual rigor aimed at com-
paring various approaches and choosing the most valid ones. In other
words diversity and creativity should be combined with scientific method.
Otherwise moral philosophy will continue to develop as literature or art.
Of course, ethics as literature or art is a legitimate genre with its own
entertaining or enlightening purposes, but what about ethics as a
science?

v
vi PREFACE

This book grew out of deep dissatisfaction with methodological weak-

ness in normative ethics which leads to uncertain conclusions and eventu-
ally a lack of respect from students and other people. Is it possible to
change this situation? Can we apply to ethics the same scientific method
which made productive and successful disciplines such as physics, biology,
or economics?
I suggest that this is possible. We can render normative ethics as a sci-
ence with clear definitions, strict logic, possibility of empirical verification,
and accurate collection of empirical data. This scientific ethics may lead to
clear falsifiable propositions which may win unanimous support from
scholars and trust from society.
It is interesting that almost all elements of scientific ethics appeared in
the writings of the major philosophers from the seventeenth to the nine-
teenth centuries (definition of good, rational choice, social contract, the
role of knowledge and feelings, etc.) and, theoretically, normative ethics
could develop into a science in the early twentieth century (e.g. as was the
case with economics). However, this did not happen. This could be attrib-
uted to the influence of Moore, the linguistic turn, or the absence of sev-
eral important tools like collective choice theory or veil of ignorance. In
any case it seems to be a fundamental and sad mistake that normative
ethics was not developed as a science in the twentieth century.
The purpose of this book is to prove that scientific ethics is possible.
Although it may sound radical, it requires not a revolution but just a last
step in assembling together the tools and concepts of various traditions
according scientific standards. Moreover, this method will eventually lead
to similar answers within these traditions, but these answers may now be
claimed to be a proved scientific knowledge.
I do not claim that this book provides a complete resolution of all
methodological issues. I want to prove only that we should accept scien-
tific methods in normative ethics. The best variants to apply this method
should be discussed further and may be different from what is suggested
in this text.
The book is organized as follows: In Chap. 1 we talk about the lack of
respect for moral philosophy in our society (and especially from students)
and discuss the general methodological structure of ethics. In Chap. 2 we
suggest a possible scientific approach to normative ethics based on indi-
vidual rational choice (which serves as a foundation in other social sci-
ences). In Chap. 3 we describe the new evolutionary model of man
explaining the role of emotions, culture, and reason in rational choice,
 PREFACE
   vii

which is important for normative ethics. In Chap. 4 we discuss the histori-

cal development of moral philosophy before the twentieth century and
trace the evolution of its attitude to a scientific approach and the appear-
ance of all theoretical elements which may be necessary in scientific ethics.
Chapter 5 examines the position of Moore and meta-ethics which were so
influential for moral philosophy in the twentieth century. In Chap. 6 we
discuss the development of contractarianism and rational choice approaches
which came the closest to a scientific approach to ethics. In Chap. 7 we
discuss several other approaches (emotivism, intuitionism, prescriptivism,
virtue ethics) and their scientific status.
This book does not claim to be a complete analysis of the relevant lit-
erature. The choice of some authors may even seem arbitrary. However,
this is only a result of limitation of time and space. I focused mainly on
books as a more mature philosophical position of their authors, but surely
there are also hundreds of academic publications that might be also inter-
esting to analyze from this perspective. This task requires a larger text and
will be pursued in the future.

St. Petersburg, Russia Maxim Storchevoy

 Contents

1 Why Science? What Science?   1

2 A Scientific Approach to Normative Ethics   9

3 Evolutionary Model of Man  23

4 Normative Ethics Before the Twentieth Century  37

5 Moore, Vienna Circle, and Meta-Ethics  79

6 Contractarianism and Rational Choice  95

7 Other Approaches 119

Index 143

ix
 List of Figures

Fig. 3.1 Three levels of choice 24

xi
 List of Tables

Table 7.1 Structure of moral language (Hare 1952) 128

xiii
 CHAPTER 1

Why Science? What Science?

Abstract Is it possible to build ethics like a science? Many ordinary people

think that this is impossible because there are too many subjective opin-
ions and disagreements. Many scholars think that this is not necessary and
some of them emphasize that there is no true science at all. However, is it
so? Can the “impossible” or “unnecessary” theses, be proved? This chap-
ter suggests the opposite. We can and should rebuild ethics as a science.
First, it will help to significantly increase its analytical quality and achieve
better theoretical progress. Second, it will upgrade the weak status of this
discipline in society and business.

Keywords • Business ethics • Ethics • Science • Truth • Verification

Is ethics a science? Can it be a science? Should it be a science? There are

no clear and comprehensive answers for these questions. Obviously, ethics
is a well-established discipline in the global academic community: there
are several peer-reviewed journals, popular world-wide conferences, etc.
And while it has many attributes of a science, it is not developed like a sci-
ence. It seems that moral philosophers have an implicit consensus that this
is impossible or unnecessary. Is this so? The book will try to discuss this
problem in detail and to suggest some steps for improvement.

© The Author(s) 2018 1

M. Storchevoy, A Scientific Approach to Ethics,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69113-8_1
2 M. STORCHEVOY

The Problem
Can ethics be a science? Many philosophers would possibly answer “no”
and some would add “why it should be?” However, there is at least one
serious practical problem created by this state of mind—lack of respect in
society for the discipline.
I refer to my experience of teaching business ethics and moral reason-
ing for managers. First, it is easy to observe an obvious lack of respect for
ethics from students. If we look into business ethics textbooks, we will find
a diversity of approaches to present normative theories, but not an aca-
demic rigor common for textbooks in physics or economics. As a result, a
common attitude of students attending a business ethics course is that
“this is entertaining but not serious” or even worse “it is a waste of time.”
I conducted several surveys to observe students’ attitude to business ethics
as a discipline. First, the students were exposed to all main approaches
(golden rule, divine command, virtues ethics, natural law, intuitionism,
Utilitarianism, Kant, Rawls, corporate social responsibility, stakeholder
theory) and were asked to discuss their weak and strong sides. After this
the students were asked to answer the q ­ uestion “Can moral theory be a
science?” This is a sample of typical responses.

• “We cannot call moral theory a science because science has to be

based on objective knowledge and we cannot conclude that moral
theory is objective because it is very dubious notion.”
• “Moral theory is based on some perceptions which a hard to mea-
sure and compare. Morality is very subjective.”
• “In order to check moral theory for falsifiability we may take as
example utilitarianism, which says that an action may be called
“right” if it maximizes good consequences. It is rather hard to falsify
this statement because the criteria of goodness is not objective, it is
our sense and there is no certain way to measure good or bad
consequences.”
• “Moral theory is subjective and is not measurable by any numbers.
This is the main hurdle to deal with it as a science.”
• “Moral theory cannot be a science because: (1) no objective data, (2)
no measurement of morality, (3) no criteria to refer facts to theories,
(4) an empirical check is impossible, (5) no reproducible results.”
• “Moral theory cannot be referred to as general truth as it differs
within different centuries and societies.”
 WHY SCIENCE? WHAT SCIENCE? 3

• “Moral theory is closely interconnected with religion which contra-

dicts science.”
• “Moral norms are always relative and subjective because there is no
clear definition of what is moral. It is not universal because it varies
from society to society, from place to place, etc.”
• “Scientific theories are objective, i.e. they exist regardless of indi-
vidual perception. Law of gravity remains unchanged in Ghana,
Russia or China. It is possible to verify it by observation and experi-
ment. Moral theory does not meet this requirement.”
• “Everything in science should be proved to be considered as a truth
but this is impossible in moral theory.”
• “The basis of considering things or actions in moral theory is subjective
and unstable, because it is based on feelings, senses and emotions.”
• “Science has some attributes: it is systematic, well-organized knowl-
edge in the forms of explanations and predictions. Moral theory does
not actually respond to any of these features. It is too flexible, non-­
systematic, its predictions are hazy.”
• “It is not known whether morality is a national variable. If it depends
on a particular society, each society should have its own theory.”

Maybe this lack of respect was a result of my poor teaching skills? Or

improper pedagogy? This is rarely so. First, my students are usually quite
excited by business ethics classes, so this is not a “boring professor” prob-
lem. Second, in this experiment I deliberately followed a standard approach
of presenting alternative theories and discussing them like the authors of
many business ethics textbooks do, so the outcome of such a survey in
many other business schools would not be very different.1 A similar
account on the cynical or skeptical attitude of students is provided in the
book on ethics in economics (Hausman et al. 2016).2
The second and no less important problem is lack of respect from the
business community. On the one hand, many professionals graduate from a
handful of business schools, so this skeptical attitude is formed at the uni-
versity bench. On the other hand, in recurring situations of ethical contro-
versies the business community almost never hears the distinctive voice of
a business ethics specialist who may confidentially resolve an issue.
However, such a “scientific voice” is normally heard in other areas of
human activity, e.g. professional opinion of physicists may resolve concern
about global warming, the professional opinion of medical researchers
may resolve concern about new disease treatment, etc. Normally, people
4 M. STORCHEVOY

have respect for science and follow recommendations of science in their

ordinary lives. When geneticists say that some disease has genetic origins
or cholesterol is not dangerous, we trust them because we know that this
is science. However, when was the last time we have heard that business
ethicists discovered some new moral truth?
Holland and Albrecht (2013) asked 211 scholars with expertise in busi-
ness ethics to identify the three most important issues that business ethics
academia will face in the near future. The first two were issues relating to
business ethics education and the credibility of business ethics. By credibility
they understood acceptance, legitimacy, respect, and recognition among
students, academia, benefactors, and practitioners. Typical examples of
responses were: “The scornful attitude of business school faculty: ethics is
not academically legitimate or rigorous,” and “Taken seriously by other
colleagues.”
Who is responsible for this lack of authority? My guess is that the aca-
demic community in the business ethics domain, and in moral philosophy
in general, traditionally supports pluralism and freedom of opinions (which
is obviously a good thing!), but at the same time does not pay enough
attention to accuracy, logical rigor, and verification which are so important
in other scientific domains (e.g. economics, physics, or medicine). The
entry “Problems of moral philosophy” in The Oxford Companion to
Philosophy tells us that “the major problem of current and traditional moral
philosophy, then, is coming up with a rationally defensible theory of right
and wrong action” (Honderich 2005, pp. 626–627). There are five
approaches (Utilitarianism, Kantianism, contractualism, intuitivism, virtue
ethics) but “no generally accepted solutions” to disagreement between
them.3
This attitude is manifested in business ethics textbooks which demonstrate
a rich diversity of approaches and colorful cases, but lack academic rigor.
They present various frameworks (Utilitarianism, Deontology, virtue eth-
ics, etc.) without trying to reduce them to a common denominator.4
A similar situation is observed in teaching social responsibility to engi-
neers and natural scientists (Zandvoort et al. 2013). There are several evi-
dences that ethics is excluded from technical education because of its
non-scientific nature:

most engineering courses are traditionally taught in a fashion which is highly

divorced from real engineering practice (Ozaktas 2011);
 WHY SCIENCE? WHAT SCIENCE? 5

Because (sustainable development) is an ambiguous concept, it is a chal-

lenge especially to engineers and engineering education, as they have tradi-
tionally focused on teaching ‘absolute facts’ (Takala and Korhonen-Yrjänheikki
2011);
[We can explain] the lack of ethical elements in university science
­education by identifying the logic underlying science curricula: they are
about learning to solve scientific puzzles that have exactly one answer.
Ethical problems, however, are contextual and complex and seldom have
only one solution. This explains why ethical elements are excluded from
mainstream university science programs: they do not fit in (Børsen et al.
2013);
Ethics teaching in engineering can be problematic because of student
perceptions of its subjective, ambiguous and philosophical content. (Alpay
2011)

This multi-confessionality with lack of criticism may be good in religion

or in art but it is hardly a good thing in science. Normally, in other sci-
ences like physics or mathematics, when two alternative theories become
the subject of deep discussion, the scholars usually aim at resolving the
conflict through logical proof or empirical verification, but there is no
such practice in ethics. Moral philosophers in much less degree compete
for logical or empirical supremacy, seek conceptual parsimony, or claim
truth than their colleagues in other disciplines. How then can moral phi-
losophers persuade students and other people that ethical theory can tell
undeniable moral truth if they cannot persuade each other?
I suggest that we can persuade each other and the society if we develop
and present a scientific approach to moral philosophy and business eth-
ics—an approach that will leave no room for skepticism and lack of respect.

What Science?
What science is the closest relative to ethics? It seems that a scientific ethics
should belong to social sciences, because it is about human behavior and
human relationships. Therefore, its closest relatives should be psychology,
sociology, economics, and political science. Moreover, there should be
substantial overlapping of these disciplines with scientific ethics because all
of them historically developed some concepts and ideas which essentially
should belong to moral theory (choice, norms, values, conflict, etc.).
If ethics is a social science then its progress probably depends even
more on good methodology than if it were a natural science because social
6 M. STORCHEVOY

phenomena have a much more complex and less deterministic nature. The
history of social science shows that progress in any of them is very prob-
lematic without a clear understanding of its research task, corresponding
methodology, and clear criteria for evaluating, criticizing, and developing
the contributions of colleagues. We can refer to the experience of one of
the most successful social sciences in the twentieth century—economics.
It achieved progress after developing a unifying neo-classical methodology
and adopting scientific methods in the early twentieth century. Since then
any theoretical claim in economics must be logically proved and empiri-
cally verified. As a result the field of economics achieved significant prog-
ress. In 1960s its scientific status was recognized by the Nobel Prize
committee by establishing a special reward. An important factor of this
success was a clear distinction for positive economics, normative econom-
ics, and economic policy which was adopted in the 1920s–1930s.
Interestingly, that huge success was achieved mostly in positive economics
and economic policy, but normative economics was mostly underdevel-
oped because it lacked a good foundation.
Distinction between normative and positive analysis has existed in eth-
ics for a long time, but it seems that philosophers do not always accurately
follow it. Moral philosophy was, for a long time, understood as “practical
philosophy” because it told people how they should live. To establish a
clear methodological principle for ethics as a science we need to distin-
guish three separate branches of ethics: normative, positive, and practical.
Normative ethics should answer the question “what is good” and “what
is right.” It may use the achievements of positive sciences as data for analy-
sis but its main research question should be normative and it should have
its own methodology (a scientific variant of this methodology will be dis-
cussed in the next chapter).
Positive ethics should answer the question “how people make ethical
choices in reality.” It should be descriptive and explanatory, but it need
not have its own methodology. It can only borrow methods from other
social disciplines (economics, sociology, psychology) and serve only as a
general contractor who defines the research question and compiles find-
ings. Its main suppliers will be: (1) economic methodology, can explain
how rational actors make their choices in various situations, (2) sociology,
can describe real practices and institutions that exist in real communities,
and (3) psychology, can study cognitive and emotional processes.
Practical ethics should answer two questions. The first question is asked
by any person: “How do I want to live my life?” Normative ethics could
 WHY SCIENCE? WHAT SCIENCE? 7

provide some practical rules on how to make right decisions and cope with
difficult moral issues. A special problem is how to make oneself comply
with moral norms, and here some tips and methods may be suggested by
psychologists. Many historical ethical approaches may be related to this
genre (e.g. the Ten Commandments were a practical code of individual
ethics, Stoics taught how to achieve eudaimonic life by psychological prac-
tices). The second question is asked by a regulator (church, manager, gov-
ernment): “How to make people behave according to moral norms?”
Normative ethics defines “ought,” and positive ethics, “is,” and the regu-
lator should bring the latter to the former. Here practical ethics may bor-
row tools from management, education theory, economics, and other
disciplines.
In this book we will focus mostly on the scientific methodology of nor-
mative ethics because it seems to be the most disputable problem that
prevents progress in general as well as applied normative ethics (e.g. busi-
ness ethics).

Notes
1. Compare an evidence from about 60 years ago: “Students of ethics are apt
to be disappointed to find that, although the subject has been studied for
over two thousand years, it does not seem to have produced any established
system of truths comparable to those of mathematics and the natural sci-
ences. Why is Aristotle’s Ethics still worth reading, while his Physics is of
interest only to scholars and historians?” (Nowell-Smith 1952, p. 15).
2. Moral questions and moral reasoning can be difficult to understand, and we
have found that students often hold very skeptical or even cynical views.
One hears claims such as, “It’s just a matter of how you feel.” “There’s no
rational way to resolve moral disputes. One can only fight.” “Moral claims
cannot be true or false.” “Morality is just a matter of social convention or
prejudice.” (Hausman et al. 2016, p. 8).
3. See also Introduction to The Oxford Handbook of Ethical Theory (Copp
2005). If we open the latest encyclopedias on business ethics (Werhane and
Freeman 2005; Kolb 2007) we also will not see a definite answer on these
questions.
4. According to Robert Solomon the majority of textbooks are full of eclectic
survey of various approaches and finally “the message to students is too
often an unabashed relativism (“if you are a utilitarian, you’ll do this, if
you’re a Kantian, you’ll do that”)” (Solomon 1992, p. 318)
8 M. STORCHEVOY

References
Alpay, E. 2011. Student-Inspired Activities for the Teaching and Learning of
Engineering Ethics. Science and Engineering Ethics 19 (4): 1455–1468.
Børsen, T., A. Antia, and M. Glessmer. 2013. A Case Study of Teaching Social
Responsibility to Doctoral Students in the Climate Sciences. Science and
Engineering Ethics 19 (4): 1491–1504.
Copp, David, ed. 2005. The Oxford Handbook of Ethical Theory. New York: Oxford
University Press.
Hausman, Daniel, Michael McPherson, and Debra Satz. 2016. Economic Analysis,
Moral Philosophy, and Public Policy. Cambridge University Press.
Holland, Daniel, and Chad Albrecht. 2013. The Worldwide Academic Field of
Business Ethics: Scholars’ Perceptions of the Most Important Issues. Journal of
Business Ethics 117 (4): 777–788.
Honderich, Ted, ed. 2005. The Oxford Companion to Philosophy. Oxford University
Press.
Kolb, R.W., ed. 2007. Encyclopedia of Business Ethics and Society. Sage Publications.
Nowell-Smith, P.H. 1952. Ethics. London, Penguine Books.
Ozaktas, H. 2011. Teaching Science, Technology, and Society to Engineering
Students: A Sixteen Year Journey. Science and Engineering Ethics 19 (4):
1439–1450.
Solomon, Robert C. 1992. Corporate Roles, Personal Virtues: An Aristotelean
Approach to Business Ethics. Business Ethics Quarterly 2 (3): 317–339.
Takala, A.J., and K. Korhonen-Yrjänheikki. 2011. A National Collaboration
Process: Finnish Engineering Education for the Benefit of People and
Environment. Science and Engineering Ethics 19 (4): 1557–1569.
Werhane, Patricia H., and R. Edward Freeman. 2005. The Blackwell Encyclopedia
of Management: Business Ethics. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Zandvoort, H., T. Børsen, M. Deneke, and S.J. Bird. 2013. Editors’ Overview
Perspectives on Teaching Social Responsibility to Students in Science and
Engineering. Science & Engineering Ethics 19 (4): 1413–1438.
 CHAPTER 2

A Scientific Approach to Normative Ethics

Abstract In this chapter we will try to develop our version of a scientific

approach to normative ethics. First, we will attempt to define the criteria
of science which should be met for a normative framework. Then we will
try to develop correct terminology and thereafter to build a series of prop-
ositions that should follow from one another in a very strict logical order.

Keywords Normative ethics • Rational choice • Scientific method •

Verification • Unanimity • Veil of ignorance

Criterion of Scientific
This is the key question for further analysis. There are many discussions in
the literature about choosing a correct concept of science and a demarca-
tion criterion which helps to distinguish between science and non-science.
It would be interesting to analyze normative ethics from the lenses of vari-
ous perspectives but this should be done in a separate text. Here we will
use just one approach—a variant of positivist concept of science. Although it
was criticized by various authors in the twentieth century it seems that
positivism or postpositivism remains a firm and indispensable foundation
of contemporary science. What is also important—the main principles of
positivist methodology may be well understood by common sense and
therefore may be relatively easily articulated to ordinary people who are

© The Author(s) 2018 9

M. Storchevoy, A Scientific Approach to Ethics,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69113-8_2
10 M. STORCHEVOY

the final consumers of our approach. A scientific approach to ethics should

be persuasive for ordinary people and that is why it should be based on
simple and realistic assumptions.
So, let us develop a simple list of criteria of science which should look
very persuasive for students or business people so that no reasonable per-
son can decline any of them. This is my variant of such a list:

• Accurate definitions. All terms and concepts of true science should

be clearly defined to exclude misunderstanding and wrong judg-
ments. If we say “good,” “must,” or “justice” everyone should
understand these concepts without any ambiguity. Accurate defini-
tions are important to make possible a productive discussion where
all participants will understand each other well and will not develop
incompatible frameworks.
• Correct logic. Theoretical models and explanations should not con-
tain any logical contradiction. If we assume that only individual
interests are important we should not suddenly start to speak about
interests of the nation. If we assume that everything depends on
consequences we cannot start saying that there are good or bad
actions as such.
• Empirical verification. All theoretical claims or hypotheses should be
verified by comparing them to facts and observations. If there is a
proposition which is impossible to verify because we do not know
what we should measure or observe for this purpose, this proposition
is not correctly made or even it is not scientific.
• Accurate measurement. When we compare our theoretical predic-
tions with facts we should be sure that we have collected accurate
information about facts. For example, if we examine a sample of
respondents we should be sure that the sample is representative and
has the same characteristics as a general population. Otherwise our
verification will be inaccurate.

I have no doubt that there might be other variants of a simple list of

criteria but I put the discussion of this problem to the specialists in scien-
tific methodology. For the purpose of our study it is important that every
reasonable person (who is the main consumer of a scientific moral philoso-
phy) would rather agree that each of these attributes is a necessary crite-
rion of true science.
 A SCIENTIFIC APPROACH TO NORMATIVE ETHICS 11

All branches of ethics—normative, descriptive, and practical—fit these

criteria. The most obvious case is positive ethics which already uses m
­ ethods
of other sciences (economics, sociology, psychology) and in which propo-
sitions may be checked through proper observations and experiments.
Practical ethics suggests the methods of regulation which may be verified
through experiments (e.g. as in medicine, management or economic pol-
icy). What about normative business ethics? Here we face the biggest meth-
odological problem. In this chapter, we first examine general normative
ethics and demonstrate that it may be rendered in such a way to meet the
chosen criteria of science.

Basic Definitions
We should start with definitions for two reasons. First, accurate definitions
which leave no place for ambiguity are necessary to make possible a pro-
ductive discussion where all participants understand each other well and
do not develop incompatible frameworks (which was the problem with
many meta-ethical debates of the twentieth century). Second, a proper
choice of definitions is necessary to make the propositions of the theory
verifiable.
Let us try to develop such definitions by considering an example. Is it
possible to verify a normative proposition “stealing is bad”? It depends on
our definition of “stealing” and “bad.” There is no problem with an accu-
rate definition of “stealing” which will help to verify if an action is “steal-
ing” or not. We may define it as “expropriating the property of other
people without their consent” or “expropriating the results of other peo-
ple’s labor without their consent.” This definition may be specified fur-
ther, but there is no doubt that we can define “stealing” in an accurate way
that will help us to classify any action as stealing or non-stealing in an
indisputable way.
However, is it possible to define “bad” to make it unambiguous and to
create the possibility of verification by observation or logical analysis?
What is “bad”? Explaining “bad” in other words we may say that it is
“what should not exist.” This definition does not seem to be clear because
of the word “should.” What does it mean? As a consequence, this defini-
tion does not allow for verification. We can rephrase the statement “steal-
ing is bad” as “stealing should not exist,” but obviously it is unclear how
to verify this proposition because of the undefined element “should.”
12 M. STORCHEVOY

There is only one way to make such a proposition verifiable. We need

to add into this definition a subject: “bad” is something that should not
exist by one’s opinion or decision. Here the word “should” gets a clear
definition—it means that the person does not want stealing to exist.
Therefore, we can build accurate propositions like

• According to X’s opinion, stealing should not exist.

It is an unambiguous proposition which may be understood as a

hypothesis. This hypothesis may be tested logically and empirically. First,
we can build some theoretical argumentation on the base of all our
knowledge of people’s general behavior and particular information about
this actor X. Is she rational? What are her interests? Does she understand
the consequence of stealing? After a series of logical assumptions we can
theoretically derive a conclusion that X does not want stealing to exist.
This theoretical model may be logically checked and found as correct or
wrong.
Second, we can conduct an empirical check of our theoretical hypoth-
esis: we can find the actor X (if it is technically possible) and ask her opin-
ion about stealing. If she asserts that she does not want stealing to exist,
this is a valid empirical support of our theoretical claim. Therefore, if nor-
mative ethics strictly follows the suggested definitions of “good” and
“bad,” it can operate with propositions that may be checked for their
theoretical correctness and may be empirically verified, which makes nor-
mative ethics fit the criteria of science.

Accurate Conditions of Individual Choice

There are several additional methodological issues about verification of
normative propositions that should be addressed before we can proceed
with building a normative ethical theory. If empirical verification of moral
propositions is to be conducted by asking the subjects if they really sup-
port them, can the respondents be wrong? Can a person say “X is good for
me” but actually this would be a false statement (mistake) because stealing
is actually bad for her. There are two factors that may lead to the alleged
mistake: (1) the subject may have various amount of information relevant
for this choice, and (2) the subject may be influenced by various emotions.
Both factors can definitely influence her judgment. How to account for
 A SCIENTIFIC APPROACH TO NORMATIVE ETHICS 13

this problem in our approach? Can we say that the subject should be given
full information to make a normative judgment? Can we say that emotions
should be excluded from influencing the answer or that they represent
relevant moral circumstances? What conditions of choice should be
assumed to be necessary for our logical or empirical test? Let us discuss
these two factors one by one.

1. All available information. Relevant information helps the subject to

figure out a fuller number of options, understand better their conse-
quences as well as realize the deeper interests of the actor. So, we
may theoretically suggest a general rule—the more information the
subject possesses the more correct judgments she makes about her per-
sonal “goods” and “bads.”

Logically, an absolutely correct judgment requires possessing full infor-

mation about the world. In other words, we may assume that a person will
make really true answers about “goods” and “bads” only if she is given full
knowledge about everything relevant to the matter of choice. This crite-
rion poses a methodological puzzle because full knowledge of the universe
is not feasible, so it is impossible to put actors into the conditions of com-
plete information, and, consequently, it is never possible to get a genuinely
true answer on “goods” and “bads”! Does it mean that a scientific
approach to science is impossible as well? Although this conclusion is logi-
cally true it does not mean that we should adopt a variant of moral error
theory assuming that all moral propositions are always wrong because we
can never possess all information. Why? First, we may still be interested in
revealing moral judgments under the given informational limitations as a
moral guide in our practical decisions—this is what business people expect
from business ethics and ordinary people expect from general normative
ethics. Yes, the genuinely true moral knowledge is unavailable but a best-­
to-­our-knowledge moral truth would have a great value for people.
Second, all other “big” sciences like physics or biology operate in the simi-
lar circumstances—it is never possible to get the full knowledge of the
universe but it does not prevent these sciences from developing themselves
and systematic expanding the boundaries of our knowledge. These sci-
ences never possess full information about the world but still they help
professional people (engineers or doctors) to base their practical day-to-­
day decisions on the accumulated knowledge.
14 M. STORCHEVOY

Therefore, we can build a variant of scientific normative ethics based on

the methodological principle of “all available information”—a moral
proposition is correct if the subject supports it after getting all accumu-
lated knowledge about the situation of choice and relevant areas.
Can we prove this methodological principle of “all available informa-
tion”? We should follow the same verification procedure. Let us build a
hypothesis:

• X wants to possess all available information during making ethical

judgments.

Then let us ask X if she agrees with this proposition. If we are wrong
and the subject does not want this, then the “all available information”
principle is arbitrary or scientifically unjustified. Logically, it seems that a
rational person will prefer to have all relevant information while making
decisions about “goods” and “bads.” It is obvious that knowledge expands
our list of options and understanding of their consequences, so we defi-
nitely can improve our decisions knowing more rather than less.
What if a person resists learning all available information before making
ethical judgments? Should we accept ethical judgments from this person?
It seems not. This is similar to children’s judgments. A child may think
“smoking is good for me” but should we recognize this normative propo-
sition as true? We should not because the child does not possess all rele-
vant information about the consequences of smoking and therefore makes
a mistake. Similarly, any person who does not possess all relevant informa-
tion about the matter of choice cannot be a source of verification of nor-
mative propositions.
However, there might be also some negative effect to our happiness.
Knowledge cannot only change our understanding of the best ways of
achieving our goals. It can do much worse—the knowledge may cardinally
change our perception of our interests because it may turn that our initial
view of the world was wrong and we should pursue some other goals or,
probably, there are no goals at all that we should pursue. At the same time,
it may happen that we will be not able to achieve the same amount of hap-
piness with additional knowledge as we had been achieving without it, or
even worse, we cannot be happy at all. For example, a man can be happy
thinking that he is immortal and additional knowledge about his inevita-
ble death may seriously change his ability to be happy.
 A SCIENTIFIC APPROACH TO NORMATIVE ETHICS 15

So, the next fundamental hypothesis is:

• X wants to have all available information about the world, assuming

that this may radically change X’s current views and destroy some of X’s
current ideals, values, and expectations?

Although in reality some people will definitely answer “no” to this

question, we can suggest that that the correct answer of a rational person
should be positive. There are two arguments justifying the positive
answer for this question. First, it seems that a rational actor is able to
manage herself to get the same level of happiness even if she has some nega-
tive knowledge about the future. For example, she can adopt some Stoics
techniques and avoid any sort of psychological suffering. Historically, we
know that humans were able to get used to any bitter truth and were
eventually able to be happy in any circumstances. Second, a rational
actor will realize the opportunity to make better choices with fuller informa-
tion. The knowledge of limited span of life will definitely help the person
to make wiser allocation of her scarce resources and probably do not
postpone some important actions for the future. Logically both explana-
tions (ability to avoid psychological suffering and making better choices)
look correct, but we can check this hypothesis by empirical verification.
We can conduct an experiment and ask a sample of real persons if they
want to have all available information about the world even if they face
some bitter truths.

2. Control of emotions. An actor’s normative judgments may be signifi-

cantly influenced by her emotions, so we need to account for this
factor in our framework. What emotional conditions should be recog-
nized as leading to true moral judgments?

The role of emotions in normative judgments was understood quite

differently by moral philosophers. Some philosophers claim that emotions
reveal the moral truth (we discuss some of these approaches in Chaps. 4,
6 and 7). However, a scientific positive analysis of emotions (see Chap. 3)
tells that they represent biological and cultural programs to control behav-
ior of people or make their life easier. Therefore, a rational man should
prefer to realize the true nature of emotions and control them from the
process of making normative judgments. It does not mean that one should
16 M. STORCHEVOY

make all decisions contrary to emotions or absolutely neglect emotions,

but it means only that the actor should not be controlled by emotions when
making her choice. The actor may decide to use emotions but it should be
a conscious decision (i.e. emotions should be controlled by the actor and
not vice versa). Again, this theoretical hypothesis that a rational actor
wants to control her emotions looks logically correct, but we need to con-
duct an empirical test of this hypothesis by asking real people to answer
this question.

• X wants to fully control emotions when making ethical judgments

If the answer is positive, then we can move further. However, what if a

person in our experiment rejects to exclude emotions from the analysis
and insists that emotions provide genuine answers for moral questions?
Should we take into account normative propositions provided by this
respondent?
It seems we should not. We would not take seriously normative judg-
ments of a drunk man or a man under drugs because the reason of that
man is distorted by chemicals. Similarly, emotions and feelings (which also
have a chemical nature) may distort rational choice. So if a person is driven
by emotions and feelings, and cannot break away from their control, her
judgments may be treated similar to the judgments of a drunk person.
This conclusion may sound a bit scary because it seems like we are build-
ing a sort of totalitarian ethics, not giving voice to those who disagree and
accusing them of being non-qualified (“inferior”) decision makers.
However, is this not a normal practice in other areas of our society? A
drunk man cannot give witness in court. A scholar in a conference on
physics cannot say that she “feels” that some theory is wrong. Opinions of
both actors will be excluded as irrelevant by the legal system or scientific
community. So why should moral theory give voice to actors whose judg-
ments are distorted by some chemical processes in their bodies and who
refuse to recognize this fact? Another analogy would be our attitude to
children’s judgments. A child may desperately and ultimately insist that
“smoking is good for me” but should we recognize this normative propo-
sition as true? It seems that we should not because the child does not pos-
sess all relevant information about the consequences of smoking and has
not learned to control her emotions yet, so she may easily make a wrong
choice. Similarly, a person of any age who does not possess all relevant
 A SCIENTIFIC APPROACH TO NORMATIVE ETHICS 17

information about the matter of choice, or who cannot control her emo-
tions, cannot be a source of verification of normative propositions.
Therefore, we suggest that derivation of moral propositions about
“goods” and “bads” requires controlling two factors—information and
emotions. The true moral propositions must be made under full available
information and under full control of emotions.

Universal Moral Norms

All previous discussion was focused only on the possibility of scientific
verification of individual moral propositions about “goods” and “bads.”
In other words we dealt only with subjective moral truths of a particular
person. The next question should be: Is it possible to derive universal moral
propositions? We can define universal moral propositions as moral judg-
ments which are evaluated as true by everyone. Such universal moral prop-
osition may be an evaluation of some object or action (e.g. “economic
growth should be high”), or a universal norm of behavior (e.g. “no one
should abuse market power”). In both cases, by definition this moral
proposition may be called a universal moral truth if and only if everyone
supports it. Are these propositions possible?

Existence of Universal Moral Norms

It can be argued logically that universal moral propositions are possible.
The mere existence of such propositions may be proved by taking some
obvious examples of such propositions that should be supported by every-
one, e. g. “global nuclear war should not happen,” “this world should
exist.” No rational subject will deny that these moral propositions are true
from her subjective point of view. Again, we assume two conditions from
the previous analysis—all available information and control of emotions
(e.g. a follower of a doomsday cult or an unhappy lover may wish death to
all people but we should not take these judgments into account).
However, there are much less obvious cases that may lead to disputes
between people where it will be more difficult to reveal if a moral proposi-
tion is universal or not. Therefore, we should define correct criteria for
testing a particular moral proposition for being a universal one. There
should be several conditions. First, we should use two conditions from the
previous analysis—all available information and control of emotions. So, we
18 M. STORCHEVOY

can suggest that a rational person will be interested in the existence of uni-
versal moral norms which tell people what is right and what is wrong. We
can verify this claim in a more obvious form by testing this hypothesis:

• X wills that there should be universal moral norms which all people
should obey

It seems that a rational answer should be positive, because it is logical to

assume that these moral norms will protect the values and interests of the
person. For example, norms prohibiting violence protect everyone from
such actions. It seems that the mere existence of laws in any society supports
this hypothesis, because laws are universal compulsory moral norms.
At this moment, we do not say what particular norms should exist, but
ask about the mere existence of some moral norms. However, when we try
to define what moral norms should exist, we may face some disagreement
between people. To resolve these problems we should carefully specify a
morally correct procedure for choosing moral norms which will be agreed
upon by all people. This procedure has several characteristics which we
will discuss one by one.

Procedure of Choice: Who?

First of all, we need to specify WHO should define the universal moral
norms that people want. Should moral norms be chosen by people or
taken from some other source (divine revelation, etc.).

• X wants that moral norms should be determined by people.

What about divine revelation or religious sources? Why not take moral
norms from the Bible or Quran? It seems that the rational person will
agree to use these sources as a reference because they accumulate some
ancient wisdom but will not use them as an ultimate source of truth. First,
a rational scientific analysis of consequences of any action works much bet-
ter that a religious source, which is oversimplified and sometimes may be
wrong. Second, how can we achieve an agreement on universal moral
norms in the society with many religions? Finally, if we want to build a
scientific moral theory it seems hardly possible to borrow any moral truth
from unscientific sources such as religion.
 A SCIENTIFIC APPROACH TO NORMATIVE ETHICS 19

Procedure of Choice: All People?

The next question is: should all people participate in the process of norms
choice or some people should be excluded? By definition, it is very impor-
tant for universal moral norms to be supported by all people. However,
what if some people make a wrong choice?
As discussed earlier, wrong answers may be given by people who do not
have all available information or who are controlled by emotions. We sug-
gested that a rational person will prefer to get all available information and
be able to control emotions, but in reality some may refuse to do this.
There are two categories of people who fit this category: people with psy-
chological disorders (e.g. those who cannot make rational choices), or
people not willing to educate themselves. However, this is a difficult meth-
odological question because there are many types of mental disorders—
the American Psychiatric Association approved a list of over 450 types.
What criterion should be used to reveal those who should be excluded?
Here moral philosophy may try to borrow the experience of law where
any actor is admitted to participate in the legal process (e.g. trial) only if
one has competence—the mental capacity to participate in legal proceedings
or transactions and to be responsible for his or her decisions or acts. If a
person does not have competence, she will be excluded from legal process
or even subjected to involuntary commitment (put into a hospital for the
mentally ill). There are various competences: competence to stand trial,
competence to enter into a contract, etc. Scientific ethics may examine this
approach and develop its own criteria for competency to choose moral norms.

Procedure of Choice: Unanimity?

The next question is: should the norms be approved unanimously or we
can use some other rule, e.g. simple or qualified majority? It seems that we
should use the unanimous rule because by definition universal rules should
be accepted by everyone, otherwise they cease to be universal. This is the
power of scientific approach to ethics because everyone should be shown
that he or she actually supports the universal moral norm. At the same
time representatives of any minority have the right to block any moral
norm which violates their interests. To verify this question we should ask
the person:

• X wants that universal moral norms should be adopted unanimously.

Another random document with
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there was kindled an anti-Jewish feeling, warning those members of
the Conservative party who participated in this agitation that they
had raised a devil which they would find it very difficult to lay.
This statement, naturally enough, provoked many contradictions;
but the speaker, in reply, justly asserted that the fact was patent to all
readers of the newspapers which supported the Bill.
Other Liberal orators followed, some of whom described the Bill
as an example of panic legislation, and others as partly prompted by
an agitation directed against the Jews. Among the latter was Mr.
Trevelyan, who remarked that the measure aimed almost as much at
those who managed to prosper as at those who were poverty-
stricken, and that all the evidence went to prove that the great mass
of these aliens were sober and industrious people who in the long
run became good citizens. He maintained that among many people
outside the House there was a frankly anti-Semitic movement which
he dreaded and deplored, and that this petty and evil step was in
exactly the same direction as that in which the Governments of
Russia and Roumania had been going.
The long debate ended with a division, in which the amendment
was negatived by a Government majority of 124, and the Bill was
read a second time. But its triumph was far from being assured by
this victory. Outside the House there was as much divergence of
opinion on the merits of the measure, its scope, and its probable
effects as there was inside, and the rival parties spared no pains to
present the motives of their adversaries in the least flattering colours.
Thus, while the advocates of the Bill denounced the opposition to it
273
as “a net constructed with the primary purpose of catching votes,”
its opponents derided it as “an attempt on the part of the
Government to gratify a small but noisy section of their supporters,
and to purchase a little popularity in the constituencies by dealing
274
harshly with a number of unfortunate aliens who have no votes.”
The English Jews were not left unmoved by the fresh calamity
which threatened their suffering brethren. As early as May, 1903,
while the Royal Commission was still carrying on its investigations,
Mr. Israel Zangwill, at a mass meeting of Zionists, foretold the
recommendations of the Commission, and expressed the fear that
the exclusion of undesirable aliens might prove only the beginning of
worse things. “The Jews came over to England with the Conqueror,”
he said, “but all their services to him and his successors did not
prevent their expulsion two and a quarter centuries later. He did not
wish to be an alarmist, but nobody who had been caught in a crowd
of mafficking hooligans could doubt the possibility of anti-Jewish riots
275
even in London.” And when, a year later, the speaker’s prediction
as to the result of the Commission’s work was fulfilled, he again, at
another Zionist meeting, said that England “was catching the
276
epidemic which rages everywhere against the Jew.” This
statement was reported to Mr. Balfour, who replied that “he believed
it to be quite untrue,” declaring that “the Aliens Bill is designed to
protect the country, not against the Jew, but against the undesirable
alien, quite irrespective of his nationality or his creed. I should regard
the rise and growth of any anti-Semitic feeling in this country as a
277
most serious national misfortune.” In a letter to The Times Mr.
Zangwill reiterated his assertion, and, while absolving Mr. Balfour
himself from anti-Semitism, he insisted that the Aliens Bill was
inspired by anti-Semites—a statement which he once more repeated
emphatically in the course of an interview with a newspaper
278
representative.
Nor was the indignation confined to Jews only. Speaking at the
annual meeting of the British Jews’ Society in Exeter Hall the Rev.
Peter Thomson declared that the Jew had been rather a blessing to
the East-end than otherwise, and, as the best testimony of this, he
quoted the Chairman of the City of London Brewery Company, who
had lamented that the dividends had gone down because of the
immigration of the Jews into the district where their public houses
were situated, concluding that he himself had no blessing for the
279
Aliens Bill.
A few days later (May 19) a deputation of the Jewish community
sought an interview with the Parliamentary Under-Secretary for
Home Affairs and through Lord Rothschild, who introduced it, drew
attention to the clauses of the Bill which would press harshly and
unjustly on the numerous Jewish immigrants into this country,
pointing out that the investigations of the Royal Commission had
proved that the advent of the aliens was not a source of
disadvantage, but of benefit to England, that the increase of the alien
population was insignificant when compared with that of America,
and that the Bill provided no machinery for the exclusion of the really
undesirable, such as existed in America, but proposed to establish in
this country a loathsome system of Police interference and
espionage. The deputation further offered on behalf of the Jewish
community to enter into a bond that the Jewish immigrants admitted
should not become a public charge during the first two years of their
residence, and to assist the authorities in excluding criminals who
might be of the Jewish persuasion.
The Under-Secretary thanked the deputation for the very
moderate tone in which they had set forth their case, disavowed any
intention on the part of the Government to encourage anti-Semitic
feeling in England, said that all, from the Prime Minister downwards,
recognised the debt which England owed to the Jews, admitted that
those members of the race who came here were both healthy and
law-abiding, but, he maintained, the Bill sought to exclude the
diseased, bad characters, and the destitute.
These assurances, however, failed to reassure the Jews. Many
of them continued to apprehend danger; a few even began to regard
expulsion as not improbable in the future. This fear has found a
280
voice in literature. In a novel published while the fate of the Aliens
hung in the balance, the Jews are banished from England by a
wicked Home Secretary, and then are brought back again, because
“England can not get along without Jewish money and Jewish
brains.” The expulsion is, of course, hardly more convincing than the
reason given for the restoration. The authoress, herself, in the
preface, describes her book as “a story of the impossible,” but she
considers that “a warning—even in the form of fiction—may not be
out of place.” The danger may be imaginary and the warning rather
premature; none the less, the book bears witness to a genuine
feeling of alarm. Such a book could not have been written a
generation ago.
Mr. Balfour was, no doubt, quite sincere in repudiating any anti-
Semitic bias on his own part and on the part of his immediate
followers. The idea of a cultured English gentleman of the present
day actuated by religious or racial rancour is too grotesque to be
seriously entertained for a moment, and it is further disproved, if
disproof were needed, by the attempt which, as will be narrated in
the sequel, the Conservative Government, in true Imperial spirit,
made to provide a home in a British possession for those Jews
whose presence it deemed undesirable in the United Kingdom.
Another proof that Jew-hatred is not yet sufficiently powerful in this
country to imperil the peace of the Jews was furnished, about the
same time, by one of our most distinguished prelates, Bishop
Welldon, who in a sermon preached at Westminster Abbey on Good
Friday, 1904, exhorted his hearers to an imitation of Christ’s
example, and to a practical demonstration of their faith by
contributing to the East London Jews’ Fund: “That was,” he said, “the
best return they could make for the crucifixion of their Lord and
Master. The Jews gave him strife, and encompassed his death; we
gave them sanctuary and kindness, and without one word of
reproach. They gratefully acknowledged the noble citizenship of
Jews in all parts of the world. In return they offered them on this
anniversary day of our Lord’s Passion what was to Christians the
holiest, dearest examples of the life and character of the Crucified
281
Redeemer.” In the following year the Bishop of Stepney issued an
appeal in connexion with Holy Week and Good Friday on behalf of
the East London Fund for the Jews. The thoughts of the season, he
said, would be incomplete unless they gave a place to those “whose
rejection of their own Messiah has been one of the great tragedies of
history.” There are more than 100,000 Jews in East London
parishes, and in some parishes they form the majority of the
population. Following the method suggested some time ago by the
Upper House of Convocation, the diocese of London treats the East-
end Jews as neighbours and parishioners, and by the tact and
patience of the fund’s workers “the barrier of prejudice, built up by
long years of persecution at the hands of Christians, is being rapidly
282
removed.” While such sentiments prevail in England, the Jews
need not fear for their liberties.
Yet, that the apprehensions of the Jews and of all friends of
freedom are not wholly unjustified, that Sir Charles Dilke and those
who agree with him in suspecting that anti-Semitic prejudice is not so
uncommon in the Kingdom at large as it is among the upper ranks,
are not the victims of a hypochondriacal dread of phantoms, was
demonstrated with deplorable opportuneness by an event which
even a temperate pessimist cannot but regard as a rude and
practical version of the creed which is elsewhere preached in a more
refined form. While Mr. Akers-Douglas at Westminster was giving the
finishing touches to his prescription for the Alien complaint, the
people of Limerick were actually trying remedies of a more drastic
and homely nature.
The Jews had hitherto been conspicuous in Ireland chiefly by
their absence. With the exception of Dublin and Belfast, the island
knew the Jew from hearsay only, and his name was to the ordinary
Irishman what it was to the Englishman in the days of Gower and
Chaucer—a symbol for a vile abstraction. In 1871 there were only six
Jews in Cork, two in Limerick and one in Waterford. But of late years
persecution on the Continent has forced some of its victims to seek
an asylum in Ireland as in England, though to a much smaller
degree. The increase in the Jews’ numbers, slight though it was,
proved sufficient to arouse a feeling of alarm and suspicion among
the ignorant masses both in the towns and in the open country.
Craftsmen, tradesmen, ploughmen, and clergymen, all began to look
with jealousy upon the clever, thrifty, and infidel new-comers from
beyond the sea. This was especially the case at Limerick, where
lately had sprung up a diminutive colony of thirty-five Jewish families,
which was by the Chief Secretary for Ireland described as a “well-
conducted section of the community, engaged for the most part in
small trades, and dependent for their livelihood on the goodwill of
283
their customers.”
 Yet, small as this colony was, it soon attracted attention. The
Catholic inhabitants of that great centre of picturesque and
somnolent decay were not pleased at the comparative success of
their wide-awake neighbours. The animosity spread from the town to
the adjacent villages. The Irish peasant, proverbially improvident and
free from any comprehension of the nature of a bargain, was ready
to buy from the Jewish peddler his goods, and strongly disinclined to
pay for them. The goods were usually sold on the instalment system,
and this, in an imaginative mind, created a pleasant illusion which,
however, was rudely shattered when the day of reckoning came.
Then the peasant realised that the goods were not a free gift, and
bitterly resented the hardship of being made to discharge his debt. It
has been stated by the Irish peasant’s advocate that over three-
quarters of the civil bill processes at quarter sessions in the island
were those of Jews against such unsophisticated debtors for arrears
284
of payments for goods purchased. The statement has been
shown to be a romantic exaggeration on an unusually ambitious
scale. In plain prose, among 1387 civil bills entered for the county
and city of Limerick during the year 1903 only 31 were issued by
Jews, while in the Easter sessions of 1904, out of a total number of
285
320 civil bills, eight only belonged to Jews. None the less, it is
quite conceivable that often the peddler’s anxiety to obtain his
money, brought into collision with the peasant’s unwillingness to part
with his, led to strained relations between the two parties. In the
circumstances it was perfectly natural that the Jew should be
denounced for “usury and extortion.” Irish patriots saw in this new
oppressor of their innocent fellow-countrymen a kind of camp-
follower of the foreign conquerors. Poor Ireland was described as a
carcase whose bones were picked by the Russian and Polish jackals
of what had been left on them by the Norman lion and the Anglo-
Saxon wolf, and Byron was quoted with considerable effect:
 So, when the lion quits his fell repast,
286
Next prowls the wolf, the filthy jackal last,

The hatred for the creditor was soon extended to his creed.
Milesian patriots, indeed, vigorously repudiated the charge of
religious intolerance, protesting, as the Russians did before them,
that the animosity against the Jew was “merely financial and not
287
religious,” and there seems no reason to doubt that economic
distress in Ireland, as in Russia and elsewhere, had contributed its
usual share to a hostility which springs from many sources. But the
assertion that the prejudice was due “merely” to financial causes is
amply disproved by facts. These show that the Catholic clergy was
sorely scandalised at the humble prosperity of the unbelievers, and
thus there was laid up a quantity of combustible material which only
awaited a spark for explosion. This spark was supplied at the
beginning of 1904 by Father Creagh, a holy monk of the
Redemptorist Order, inspired by a religious fervour and a credulity
rare in these days and gifted with great eloquence of the kind which
once incited the mobs of Europe to outrages. Like many another
mediaeval saint, this priest was impelled by the purest of motives—
piety and patriotism—to preach a crusade against those whom his
untutored conscience taught him to regard as the enemies of his
people and of his God: “It would be madness for a man to nourish in
his own breast a viper that might at any moment slay its benefactor
with a poisonous bite. So it is madness for a people to allow an evil
to grow in their midst that will eventually cause them ruin.” Thus
began the preacher, and then proceeded to anathematise the Jews
as usurers who enslaved the people, as sinners who rejected Jesus,
as the secular persecutors of Christianity, as the monsters who “slew
St. Stephen, the first martyr, and St. James the Apostle, and ever
since, as often as opportunity offered, did not hesitate to shed
Christian blood, and that even in the meanest and most cruel
manner, as in the case of the holy martyr, St. Simon, who, though a
mere child, they took and crucified out of hatred and derision
towards our Lord Jesus Christ. Nowadays they dare not kidnap and
slay Christian children, but they will not hesitate to expose them to a
longer and even more cruel martyrdom by taking the clothes off their
288
back and the bite out of their mouth.”
Having endowed the Jew with the most diabolical character
imaginable and traced to him the woes of the Catholic Church in
France, the preacher concluded by exhorting his congregation to
have no dealings with the people whom God had cursed. As a result
of this atrocious sermon, no Jew or Jewess could stir abroad without
being insulted or assaulted, and, when the priest’s exhortations
reached the open country, there also, as in the city of Limerick, the
Jews fell a prey to a series of brutal attacks, until the preacher,
alarmed at his own success, urged his flock to desist from stoning
the unbelievers but try to starve them. The good people readily
obeyed. They not only ceased to deal with the Jewish peddlers, but,
improving on their pastor’s precepts, refused even to pay what they
owed to them for goods purchased in the past. And while Catholic
customers shunned the Jewish tradesmen, Catholic tradesmen in
some cases refused to sell to the Jews the necessaries of life. With
the exception of two or three families, the small Jewish colony of
Limerick was reduced to utter penury. People hitherto in comfortable
circumstances were forced to sell the very furniture of their houses in
order to buy food, while the majority of them were saved from
starvation only by the charity of some Protestant gentlemen, who,
however, were obliged to observe the utmost secrecy in rendering
assistance for fear of drawing down upon themselves the pious
wrath of the Redemptorist monks and of the six thousand brethren of
the Confraternity of the Holy Family, whose fanaticism the prophet
continued to inflame with his historic fictions. This state of things did
not end until, public opinion being roused in England, the
Government was induced to take adequate measures for the
protection of the Jews against violence, and philanthropists hastened
to their relief. Such was the position of the Jews in a part of Ireland in
the year of grace 1904.
Meanwhile the unblessed Bill, after having been safely piloted
through the stormy debate on the second reading, suffered
shipwreck in the relatively calm harbour of Grand Committee. Every
one of its clauses was subjected to severe criticism, until nothing
was left of the essay in legislation so carefully elaborated by the
Home Secretary. This catastrophe was by the advocates of the
measure attributed to “the obstructive tactics to which its opponents
289
resorted.” A more philosophical explanation of the failure of the
Bill, and one probably as remote from the truth, would be that the
Government, yielding to the importunity of some of its followers,
promised a measure which it had no power to pass and no great
desire to see passed. Be that as it may, few perhaps regretted the
failure of an attempt to shut out from this country all strangers
indiscriminately, for no better reason than that they are poor and
persecuted, thus conspiring with the very Governments whose
conduct we condemn and gratuitously forswearing those traditions of
freedom, tolerance, and hospitality which will probably in the
estimation of future ages stand much higher than a great many
things which we now value as our chief titles to the world’s respect.
These sentiments will naturally be received with derision by
persons who, fortified by copious draughts of statistics, boast a
healthy immunity from “sentimentality,” profess a truly primitive
contempt for abstract ideas, and glory in their emancipation from “the
capacity for being fascinated by magic words—such as the word
290
‘free.’” Strong-minded persons of this type confess that “they
cannot see what benefit accrues to the community by the advent of
such immigrants that can possibly compensate the injury to our own
291
people of a hard-working class.” Robust thinkers of this school
consider obstruction with a barrow of fruit by a poor lad an offence
sufficiently serious to justify exclusion, and this, too, while they
denounce the Roumanian Government’s policy as “directed to the
292
suppression, expulsion, and political extermination of the Jews.”
The statistical mind has its own way of looking at things, and it is
able to discern a difference in principle between “expulsion” and
“exclusion” which is too subtle for the mere layman’s eye. It is,
therefore, not surprising that statisticians should have continued their
self-appointed mission of enlightening the world on the enormities of
the foreign immigrant. The Immigration Reform Association,
immediately on the defeat of the Bill, announced its determination “to
continue, and, if possible, to extend its work,” and made an appeal to
293
the public for funds. The magazines continued to be filled with
articles on the same melancholy topic, and a daily newspaper
carefully chronicled under the standing heading “Our Foreigners Day
by Day” all cases, however frivolous, which tended to bring into
strong relief the foreigner’s criminality. Members of Parliament felt it
to be their duty to denounce to their constituencies the Radical Party,
which, by its “most persistent obstruction,” had obliged the
Government to withdraw the Bill, and to ask them to demand its
294
reintroduction. In brief, no efforts were spared to influence that
powerful assemblage of thoughtless dogmatists known as the
reading public, and to guide that monstrous machine which,
propelled by prejudice and fed by newspaper paragraphs,
constitutes what we cynically call public opinion.
The Government also benevolently promised, both through its
members and in the Speech from the Throne, that the Opposition
would be given an early opportunity of reforming their manners with
regard to the question. Naturally. For, according to the Board of
Trade alien immigration returns, the number of foreigners who
arrived in the United Kingdom during the twelve months which ended
on December 31st, 1904, showed few signs of decline. It was,
therefore, plain that the Aliens Bill was not dead; but that the same
measure, or a measure conceived in the same spirit, would, unless
some power hitherto undiscovered removed the grievance, be again
submitted to Parliament at some future date. And this is what
actually happened. On April 18, 1905, the Home Secretary brought
in a new Bill which differed from its predecessor chiefly in being
better adapted to the purpose for which it was intended. And yet,
though the arguments by which it was supported and the object at
which it aimed remained the same, it met with an entirely different
reception. The public had, in the meantime, been so successfully
“educated,” and the feeling in favour of legislation for the restriction
of the entrance of aliens had grown so strong, that the Opposition,
mindful of its party interests, refrained from opposing the measure
with the vigour which it had displayed in the previous year, and the
Bill, a few months afterwards, became law. That being
1905 Aug. 11
the case, it is well to form a clear idea as to the merits
and the meaning of the measure.
The Aliens Act is avowedly levelled only at the criminal, the
pauper, the diseased, and the prostitute. So far it is a measure
unobjectionable in theory, however impracticable it may prove in
application. Those charged with the execution of its provisions may,
if they can, prevent the arrival of these truly undesirable immigrants.
No one desires them. But this only touches the fringe of the matter.
The exclusion of such immigrants affords no remedy for the
congestion and competition which form the principal grounds of
complaint against the alien immigrants. The bulk of these are
Russian and Polish Jews and, as a class, are, by the late
Government’s own admission, neither criminal, nor destitute, nor
diseased, nor immoral. They are not a burden on the British tax-
payer. They crowd neither the British workhouses nor the British
hospitals. The evils complained of can, therefore, be remedied not
by the exclusion of the few bad characters, but only by refusing an
asylum on British soil to the industrious and temperate victim of
Russian or Roumanian tyranny, who, when allowed the opportunity,
is, in the vast majority of cases, transformed, within a few years, into
a valuable British citizen. And the Act, accordingly, while professing
to be directed against undesirable characters, makes no distinction
whatever between the undesirable and the merely unhappy. It
provides nominal protection for political refugees, it is true, but the
subordinate officials, to whose discretion the matter is practically left,
are empowered to prohibit from landing men and women whose sole
crime is that, accustomed to a frugal life, they are willing to accept a
wage which the English working man and woman refuse. Is this a
cause sufficient to justify exclusion? That is the real question at
issue, honestly put. The talk about criminals, paupers and prostitutes
is only a disingenuous effort to clothe a selfish economic matter with
a semblance of morality. It is not their vices but their virtues that
render Jewish immigrants really undesirable. Is that right? The
answer to this question would have been easy enough a few years
ago. But now, when the whole principle of free competition is under
reconsideration, the answer which the majority of Englishmen will be
disposed to make to it must ultimately depend on their decision
concerning that principle.
How far can the Act be fairly regarded as a symptom of anti-
Semitic feeling? There can be no doubt that its authors and many of
its supporters, entirely free from religious or racial prejudice
themselves, intended it simply as a remedy for an economic
complaint. But whatever the late Government’s intentions may have
been, and whether in this matter it acted as a leader or a follower, it
has in effect provided anti-aliens and anti-Semites, avowed or
secret, with the very weapon which they wanted, as they showed by
their eager participation in the movement which, if it did not dictate
the measure, certainly assisted in its production. Again, it would be
unfair and untrue to charge all, or even the bulk, of the anti-alien
agitators with anti-Semitism. The great majority of them were and
are animated by no special prejudice against the Jews as such, and,
if they teach the masses any lesson, it is to hate and to despise all
foreigners impartially. But as by far most of these foreigners who
come to England happen to be Jews, it is impossible to dissociate
the anti-alien from the anti-Jewish campaign. On the Continent the
haters of the Jew on racial or religious grounds are few in
comparison with those who persecute him from enlightened motives,
economic and social. Yet we brand them all as anti-Semites, justly in
the main, if somewhat loosely; for differences in motive are of little
practical importance when they lead to agreement in action. In
England also the few enemies of the Jew have recognised in the
enemies of the undesirable alien natural allies, and the two forces,
however widely they may differ in their origin, coalesce into practical
anti-Semitism—a coalition which has found, as we have seen, a
common vehicle of expression in the provincial patriot’s pamphlet.
Other signs of anti-Semitism, in the strict sense of the term, are not
wanting; the most sinister of them hitherto being the Limerick affair. It
is, of course, easy to overrate the significance of these cases. It is
not so easy to overlook them.
Even more ominous than these specific cases is the slow
formation in the British Isles of an atmosphere favourable to the
dissemination of any illiberal epidemic whose germs may chance to
grow at home or to be imported from abroad. Narrow nationalism is
daily becoming more aggressive, more unscrupulous, and more
unashamed of itself. Public opinion is daily showing a more ready
acquiescence in the sacrifice of the claims of man to the claims of
the Englishman—this is called patriotism—and of the claims of right
to the claims of policy—this is called Imperialism. Patriotism is a
noble sentiment, and the imperial is a noble ideal. But nobler than
either patriotism or Imperialism are justice and freedom. With these
the love of country and the love of Empire are things for which one
may well be content to live and happy to die. Without them they are
merely fair masks for things whose real names are worship of self,
worship of pelf, the deification of brute force, low lust of conquest
abroad, which sooner or later leads to slavery at home; substitution
of the little and the local for the great and the eternal. It is a gradual
approximation towards that standard of conduct which has turned
Germany from a high school of humanistic culture into a barrack,
and which threatens to turn England from a school of political liberty
into a shop. A ledger is a respectable book enough, but an indifferent
substitute for a moral code. And we seem to take pride in quoting the
ledger and in ridiculing the moral code.
The whole controversy in Parliament and in the press on the
Alien question is an illustration of this attitude. In vain you will seek
amid the conflicting arguments for any clear apprehension of the
principle involved. The same politicians and publicists who
denounced the late Government for endeavouring to exclude the
undesired alien from England, denounced it also for not excluding
the undesired alien from South Africa. The same calumnies from
which they defended the Jew they themselves would level at the
Chinaman, and while they appealed to the ideal of freedom in order
to stigmatise the Government’s attempts to protect the native of
England against competition, they anathematised that Government
for not protecting the native of South Africa against similar
competition; objecting not so much to the conditions under which the
yellow man was imported as to the colour of his skin. Even the most
liberal of our public men are apt to use the terms “white man” or
“alien” in a manner which shows that they are far from being proof
against the prejudices which they condemn in others. At no other
time, perhaps, has more painfully been demonstrated the ominous
absence of consistent principle from British statesmanship. The two
political parties, devoid of any sincere faith in the maxims which they
profess, are ready to deny one day what they may defend the next,
and to exchange creeds at a moment’s notice for a moment’s gain.
In such a state of the national temper and of political morality anti-
Semitism would find only too congenial a soil. The present writer,
after a careful study of the whole history of the modern movement
against the Jews, cannot but concur with those who maintain that the
seeds of anti-Semitism are already amongst us. These seeds may
still lie too deep for germination, but there are sufficient reasons to
fear that in England, as on the Continent, any accident may, sooner
or later, bring them near the surface and aërate them into life. The
day on which this may happen will be a black day not for the Jews
only.
The meaning of anti-Semitism, as it prevails abroad, can be read
by the light of its results. By their actions thou shalt know them. But
the actions of the anti-Semites, deplorable as they are, are less
deplorable than the social conditions which they illustrate. Anti-
Semitism is a movement retrogressive in a twofold sense.
Retrogressive inasmuch as it shows that the current of European
humanism is flowing backwards, and retrogressive inasmuch as it
has actually checked the gradual and voluntary assimilation of the
Jew. It is a resurrection of the mediaeval monster of intolerance with
a fresh face, and its effects are those which attended mediaeval
persecution.
Among the worst Jews it has brought back to life the class of
vulgar apostates which had vanished with the emancipation of the
race—lineal descendants of those renegades who in the Dark Ages
poisoned the shafts of persecution, who slandered their own race,
befouled the nest in which they had been nursed, reviled their own
God, and treated their own brethren with a contempt which none
deserved more richly than themselves. Such a specimen of
reversion to a type which one had fondly imagined to be extinct is
the editor of a well-known French journal, than whom no one
distinguished himself more unenviably in the anti-Dreyfus campaign.
He was only one of many Jews who, ashamed of their despised
race, strive to conceal the guilt of their origin by joining the ranks of
its most rabid foes, and who, by their excessive zeal, betray what
they would fain disguise. Readers of M. Anatole France’s Histoire
Contemporaine will remember the exquisite portraits of Hebrew anti-
Semites, such as Madame de Bonmont—“une dame catholique,
mais d’origine juive”—her brother Wallstein, M. Worms-Clavelin, the
prefect, and, above all, the prefect’s wife, who educated her
daughter in a Catholic convent, and who “a garni avec les chapes
magnifiques et vénérables de Saint-Porchaire ces sortes de meubles
appelés vulgairement poufs.”
Among the best Jews it has brought about a reaction against the
ideals established by Mendelssohn’s teaching. It has originated a
call back to orthodoxy, to narrowness, to exclusiveness. Israel at the
present day is essentially a religious brotherhood; anti-Semitism
forces it to become once more a nation. Even those Jews who in
time of prosperity might feel inclined to quit the Synagogue, are in
the day of adversity driven back to it from a sense of chivalry.
Persecution strengthens the feeling of fraternity, and the liberal
instincts of the individual are sacrificed for the sake of the
community, as in the days of old. But, if separatism is fatal to the
Jews themselves, it is hardly a blessing to humanity at large. From
the other point of view, the Gentile, anti-Semitism is not less an evil.
Disraeli once said that “Providence would deal good or ill fortune to
295
nations according as they dealt well or ill by the Jews.” The
saying, when stripped of its quasi-apocalyptic garb, will be found to
conceal a great truth in it. Hatred towards the Jew has always
abounded whenever and wherever barbarism has abounded. The
amount of anti-Semitism in a country has generally been
proportionate to the amount of bigotry, mental depravity, and moral
callousness it contained. That so many now are willing to advocate
anti-Semitism marks the precarious and superficial character of our
civilisation.
I have already said that I consider anti-Semitism as a proof and
an illustration of a tendency to turn back the hand on the dial. It is a
coincidence, not perhaps wholly devoid of significance, that the age
which has witnessed the revival of Jew-hatred is also the age of
revived mediaevalism under other aspects—art, literature, and
religion. The step from Romanticism to Romanism is a very short
one. Indeed, the two things may be regarded as only two different
manifestations of one mental disposition: the disposition to a
mediaeval interpretation of life and its problems. More significant still
are the attempts made in these days to whitewash the great tyrants
of the past whose principles reason and experience have taught us
to abhor. Most significant circumstance of all, the apologists of the
Inquisition, whom the sarcasms of the eighteenth century had
shamed into silence, and Napoleon’s cannon cowed into feigned
toleration, have, within the last thirty years, taken heart again, and
ventured to abuse that liberty of speech which they owe to the
triumph of Rationalism by preaching the cause of Obscurantism.
Learned Jesuits and Benedictines in many parts of Europe have,
since 1875, not only publicly acknowledged and defended the
abominations of the Holy Office, but actually expressed an
undisguised longing for its restoration to the power of roasting every
296
one who dares to think for himself. That they may succeed is a
fear which even the most fantastic of pessimists would feel unable to
cherish. But their mere existence forms in itself a considerable check
on too sanguine optimism.
 CHAPTER XXIV

ZIONISM

The persecution of the Jews in Russia, their oppression in Roumania

and the revival of the old prejudice against them in Western Europe
during the last quarter of the nineteenth century have, as has been
pointed out, arrested the gradual denationalisation of Judaism, which
had commenced in the latter part of the eighteenth under
Mendelssohn’s impulse, and, in proportion as they have widened the
hostility between Jew and Gentile, they have tended to tighten the
links of sympathy between the Jews scattered in various parts of the
world. Under the benign influence of persecution Jewish patriotism
has again blazed up into flame. This sentiment has found a practical
expression in many movements set on foot for the relief and rescue
of the suffering race. One movement of the kind, prompted by the
anti-Jewish agitation in Russia and the resuscitation of the blood
accusation against the Jews of the Near East in the ’fifties, resulted
in the birth of a society the object of which it is to watch over the
interests of the Jews in the countries where they are exposed to
danger, to protect them against persecution, to promote their
material welfare, and to encourage their intellectual development.
This is the Alliance Israélite Universelle, founded in Paris, in 1860.
Its funds are derived from thousands of subscribers all over the
world, and its work is carried on by branch establishments in many
countries. The educational activity of the Alliance is especially
directed to the Near East and the coast of North Africa—Bulgaria,
Turkey in Europe and Asia, Persia, Egypt, Tripoli, Tunis, Algeria,
Morocco. In all these countries it maintains numerous schools at an
annual expense which in 1903 amounted to 1,200,000 francs. In
connection with the Alliance there was established, in 1871, in
London the Anglo-Jewish Association, and in Vienna the Israelitische
Allianz, whose principal aim is the elevation of the Jews of Galicia. It
was mainly through these societies that the cause of the Roumanian
Jews was advocated in 1872 and that the members of the Congress
of Berlin, in 1878, were induced to take the ineffectual steps already
described for the improvement of the condition of the Jews in
Roumania and Servia. Foremost among these, and many other
organisations for the succour of Jewish victims of persecution,
stands Baron Hirsch’s gigantic fund of £9,000,000 for the settlement
of emigrants in new countries.
But all these efforts can only be described as palliatives. They
aim simply at a temporary alleviation of the sufferings of Israel; they
do not attempt to provide a radical remedy for the evil. The only
remedies that history points out as worthy of the name are either
assimilation of the Jews in various countries to the Gentiles among
whom they dwell, or separation from the latter, geographical as well
as political. The first alternative, as we have seen, has from time to
time appeared within a certain distance of partial realisation,
reaching its nearest approach in the years following on the
emancipation of the race under the influence of the broad principles
of humanitarianism which reigned during the latter half of the
eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century. Whether this
approach would ever have developed into a general absorption of
the Jews is a speculative question which admits of more answers
than one. The fact that is of greater value to the historian is that such
a development was checked by the reaction already described under
the name of anti-Semitism. Hence the other remedy has come more
and more to the front under the name of Zionism.
The movement combines in itself two aims, a practical and a
sentimental one. Its practical aim is to provide a solution of the
Jewish problem by bringing about the geographical and political
separation of the Jews from the Gentiles. Its sentimental aim is to
satisfy the traditional attachment of the Jews to the land of their
origin. In neither of its two aims can the movement, under its modern
aspect, claim to be original. Attempts to restore the Jewish State, in
some form or other, have repeatedly been made in the past. In the
middle of the sixteenth century—the age of the Ghetto—Tiberias was
proposed by a Jew as the seat of a new Jewish State. In the middle
of the seventeenth—the age of Sabbataï Zebi—three more schemes
of the kind were advocated: one for a settlement of the Jews in the
Dutch West Indies, another for their emigration to Dutch Guiana, and
a third recommended French Guiana. In the middle of the eighteenth
century South America was again proposed, and North America in
the middle of the nineteenth. But none of these proposals succeeded
in evoking any enthusiasm among the Jews. On the contrary, the
orthodox Jews—and such are the majority of Eastern European
Jews—led by their Rabbis, strenuously opposed the last suggestion
of emigration to America which was made by their more advanced
brethren of the West; and the plan perished still-born.
The Zionist movement, on the other hand, differs from all former
movements, except the first, inasmuch as it strives to enlist in its
favour the heart as well as the head of Israel. In selecting Palestine
as the future home of the race, the leaders of the movement have
endeavoured to gratify a craving, the force of which it is easy to
exaggerate, but impossible to ignore. If there is in Jewish history one
event that has exercised a lasting influence over the fortunes of the
nation, it is the destruction of Jerusalem and the consequent
dispersion. If there is one sentiment that has bound the branches of
the Jewish family together through the ages, more strongly than any
other, it is the hope of ultimate rehabilitation. For eighteen hundred
years the children of Israel have wandered over the earth, insulted,
oppressed, persecuted, without a country, without a home, with
scarcely a resting place, strangers in every realm in which they
pitched their tent. But, though banished from the land of their birth
and far from the tombs of their forefathers, the vast majority of them
have preserved, amidst all trials and temptations, their traditions,
their usages and their faith unimpaired. Without the hope of
restoration such constancy would have been impossible and
meaningless.
The destruction of Zion cast its shadow over the soul of the
Jewish people throughout the Middle Ages, and the mourning for it is
the most picturesque, the most pathetic, and the most prominent
feature of their public and domestic life. In the synagogues, as well
as in many private houses, a space on the wall was always left
unpainted to recall the national humiliation. The Jews of every
country in token of grief wore black, whence they were called
“Mourners of Zion.” In memory of the same calamity gold and silver
ornaments were banished from the bridal wreath, and ashes were
strewn over the heads of the bride and the bridegroom at weddings.
In Germany the bridegroom wore a cowl of mourning and the bride a
white shroud. A mediaeval table-hymn, sung after the meal on Friday
evenings, or Saturday mornings, ran as follows:

“Build, O rebuild Thou, Thy temple,

Fill again Zion, Thy city,
Clad with delight will we go there,
Other and new songs to sing there,
Merciful One and All-holy,
Praisèd for ever and ever.”

Similar examples might be cited from every side—all showing

that the sad memories of the past and the belief in ultimate triumph
were the two poles between which revolved the spiritual life of the
nation. The Prophets who had predicted the dispersion and the
captivity of the children of Israel had also predicted their repatriation.
“Behold, I will gather them out of all countries whither I have driven
them in mine anger, and in my fury, and in great wrath; and I will
bring them again unto this place, and I will cause them to dwell
297
safely.” This hope was the life-belt which enabled the Jew to float
amidst the wrecks of so many storms during eighteen centuries. In
the night of their darkest desolation the Jews kept their eyes fixed to
the East, and said to themselves and to one another, “Courage, the
day is at hand.” Attachment to Faith and Fatherland—the religious
and the national ideals—are the two strands, indissolubly entwined,
of that great Messianic dream which runs like a golden thread
through the black web of Jewish history. The Holy Land never
ceased to be regarded as the true home of the race. Benjamin of