45: 



LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY chap. 



ness, but the late rise of Attica, whereas Magna Graecia 

 flourished in the eighth century. The Greeks were doing 

 everything — piracy, trade, fighting, expelling the Persians. 

 Never was there so large a number of self-governing com- 

 munities. 



" They fell short of the Jews in morality. How curious 

 is the tolerant attitude of Socrates, like a modern man of 

 the world talking to a young fellow who runs after the girls. 

 The Jew, however he fell short in other respects, set himself 

 a certain standard in cleanliness of life, and would not fall 

 below it. The more creditable to him, because these vices 

 were the offspring of the Semitic races among whom the 

 Jew lived. 



" There is a curious similarity between the position of 

 the Jews in ancient times and what it is now. They were 

 procurers and usurers among the Gentiles, yet many of 

 them were singularly high-minded and pure. All too with 

 an intense clannishness, the secret of their success, and a 

 sense of superiority to the Gentile which would prevent the 

 meanest Jew from sitting at table with a proconsul. 



" The most remarkable achievement of the Jew was to 

 impose on Europe for eighteen centuries his own supersti- 

 tions—his ideas of the supernatural. Jahveh was no more 

 than Zeus or Milcom ; yet the Jew got established the belief 

 in the inspiration of his Bible and his Law. If I were a 

 Jew, I should have the same contempt as he has for the 

 Christian who acted in this way towards me, who took my 

 ideas and scorned me for clinging to them." 



January 21. — Yesterday evening he again declared that 

 it was very hard for a man of peace like himself to have 

 been dragged into so many controversies. " I declare that 

 for the last twenty years I have never attacked, but always 

 fought in self-defence, counting Darwin, of course, as part 

 of myself, for dear Darwin never could nor would defend 



himself. Before that, I admit I attacked , but I could 



not trust the man." A pause. " No, there was one other 

 case, when I attacked without being directly assailed, and 

 that was Gladstone. But it was good for other reasons. 

 It has always astonished me how a man after fifty or sixty 



