Chapter VII: Part 7

[The first article of the Basle Programme, formulated in 1897, reads:
“Der Zionismus erstrebt für das jüdische Volk die Schaffung einer
öffentlich-rechtlich gesicherten Heimstätte in Palästina.” Until the
Ninth Congress (1909) this was generally understood as involving the
creation of an autonomous “Jewish State” in Palestine.]

Footnote 74:

It may be worth while to mention here an article written at Basle
during the Congress and printed in the _Jewish Chronicle_ (25 Aug.,
1911), as it is a striking example of the confusion of thought which
reigned at this Congress. The writer regards the victory of the
“practicals” as an abandonment of the national ideal, and expresses
his surprise that Hebrew occupied so prominent a place at such a
Congress. The Herzlian Zionists, he thinks, standing as they do for a
national ideal, naturally desire the revival of the national language;
but these “practicals,” who have turned their backs on the national
ideal, and made Zionism merely a colonising scheme—what interest have
they in the revival of Hebrew? Could not Jews live comfortably in
their Colonies in Palestine even if they spoke other languages, like
the Jews of the rest of the world?—I should advise those against whom
this argument is directed not simply to dismiss the paradox with a
smile, but to ask themselves how it came about that their aims could
be so misunderstood.

Footnote 75:

[The Biblical _Shekel_ (plural _Shekalim_) has been adopted as the
unit of contribution to the Zionist Organisation.]

Footnote 76:

[The Agrarian Bank is still (1921) only a project.]

Footnote 77:

I speak (here and further on) only of the Colonies in Judea and Lower
Galilee. I did not visit Upper Galilee on this occasion. There are,
indeed, two or three Colonies in Judea which are exceptions; but
special reasons have made them unprosperous and kept their inhabitants
in the old rut. We are not here concerned with these individual
problems.

Footnote 78:

The Colonies of this type, founded during the last few years, have
already been left by many of the first settlers, whose places have
been taken by others.

Footnote 79:

[_i.e._, securing the exclusive employment of Jewish labour on
Jewish-owned land.]

Footnote 80:

There is a further class of “contractor-labourers,” called in
Palestine _k’vutzoth_ (groups), who work National Fund land in some
places on a co-operative basis. But the results of this experiment are
not yet clear, and in any case the system cannot be expected to
develop so far as to be able to bring about a radical change in the
labour problem. Recently, too, Yemenite Jews have been coming to
Palestine, settling in the Colonies, and working as labourers; and the
Zionists are already proclaiming that the Yemenites will build up the
land. But this is another experiment on which judgment cannot yet be
passed. Many people in Palestine think that the Yemenites are not
physically strong enough for hard work; and, moreover, their level of
culture and their mentality are so different from ours that the
question inevitably presents itself whether an increase in their
number will not change the whole character of the settlement, and
whether the change will be for the better.

I have here touched only on the question of the possibility of
“capturing labour.” But an answer is still awaited to another
question—whether it is proper for us, who are “bottom dog” everywhere,
to aim at a monopoly of labour, and whether they are not right who
maintain that this policy will prove to be our most serious obstacle.

Footnote 81:

In Petach-Tikvah, for instance, it is possible for three or four
hundred labourers at most to earn a living by the finer kinds of work;
whereas the unskilled labour employs at times thousands.

Footnote 82:

[The quotation is from an Essay called _Dr. Pinsker and his Pamphlet_,
written in 1892.]

Footnote 83:

[From the Supplement to an Essay called _Truth from Palestine_ (II),
written in 1894.]

Footnote 84:

I cannot refrain from mentioning here a small incident which
illustrates the present position excellently. I visited one of the
classes of the Hilfsverein school at Jaffa during the German reading
lesson. The pupils were puzzled by the word _aufheben_, and the
teacher tried to explain it by German synonyms, which they equally
failed to understand. At last the teacher’s patience was exhausted,
and he exclaimed angrily, in pure Sephardic pronunciation,
“_levatel_!” All the pupils understood at once!

Footnote 85:

[A Hebrew school of Arts and Crafts in Jerusalem.]

THE SUPREMACY OF REASON
(TO THE MEMORY OF MAIMONIDES)
(1904)

At last, after the lapse of seven hundred years,[86] the anniversary of Maimonides’ death has been raised to the dignity of an important national day of memorial, and has been honoured throughout the Diaspora. In earlier centuries our ancestors do not appear to have remembered that so-and-so many hundred years had passed since the death of Maimonides; still less did they make the anniversary a public event, as we do now, although they were in much closer sympathy with Maimonides than we are—or, to be more correct, _because_ they were in much closer sympathy with him than we are. They did not feel it necessary to commemorate the death of one whom in spirit they saw still living among them—one whose advice and instruction they sought every day in all their difficulties of theory and practice, as though he were still in their midst. In those days it was almost impossible for an educated Jew (and most Jews then were educated) to pass a single day without remembering Maimonides: just as it was impossible for him to pass a single day without remembering Zion. In whatever field of study the Jew might be engaged—in _halachah_,[87] in ethics, in religious or philosophical speculation—inevitably he found Maimonides in the place of honour, an authority whose utterances were eagerly conned even by his opponents. And even if a man happened to be no student, at any rate he would say his prayers every day, and finish his morning prayer with the “Thirteen Articles”: how then could he forget the man who formulated the Articles of the Jewish religion?

But how different it is to-day! If a Jew of that earlier time came to life again, and we wanted to bring home to him as forcibly as possible the distance between ourselves and our ancestors, it would be enough, I think, to tell him that nowadays one may spend a great deal of time in reading Hebrew articles and books without coming across a single reference to Maimonides. And the reason is not that we have satisfactory answers to all the spiritual questions which troubled our ancestors, and have therefore no need for the out-of-date philosophy of Maimonides. The reason is that the questions themselves are no longer on our agenda: because we are told that nowadays men of enlightenment are concerned not with spiritual questions, but only with politics and hard, concrete facts. If Maimonides in his day accepted the dictum of Aristotle that the sense of touch is a thing to be ashamed of, we in our day are prone to accept the dictum that “spirituality” is a thing to be ashamed of, and nothing is worth notice except what can be touched and felt. When, therefore, we were reminded this year that seven hundred years had elapsed since the death of the man with whom the spiritual life of our people has been bound up during all the intervening period, the fact made a profound impression throughout the length and breadth of Jewry. It was as though our people were quickened by this reminder, and stirred suddenly to some vague yearning after the past—that past in which it was still capable (despite all the _Judennot_[88]) of looking upwards and seeking answers to other questions than those of bread and a _Nachtasyl_.

Be that as it may, Maimonides has become the hero of the moment and a subject of general interest. Many an address has been delivered, many an article has been written in his honour this year; but nobody, so far as I have seen, has yet used the occasion to unearth, from beneath that heap of musty metaphysics which is so foreign to us, the central idea of Maimonides, and to show how there sprang from this central idea those views of his on religion and morality, which produced a long period of unstable equilibrium in Judaism, and have left a profound impression on the spiritual development of our people. Since none else has performed this task, I am minded to try my hand at it. If even those who are expert in Maimonides’ system find here some new point of view, so much the better; if not, no harm is done. For my purpose is not to discover something new, but to rehearse old facts in an order and a style that seem to me to be new, and to be better adapted to present the subject intelligibly to modern men, who have not been brought up on medieval literature.

I

Can Maimonides claim to be regarded as the originator of a new system? This is a question which has exercised various authors; but we may leave it to those who attach importance to names. We may give Maimonides that title or not: but two facts are beyond dispute. On the one hand, the fundamental assumptions on which he built up his system were not his own, but were borrowed by him almost in their entirety from the philosophy of Aristotle as presented at second hand by the Arabs, who introduced into it a good deal of neo-Platonic doctrine. But, on the other hand, it is indisputable that Maimonides carried to their logical conclusion the ethical consequences of those assumptions, as the Greeks and the Arabs, with whom the assumptions originated, did not; and in this way he did say something that was new and hitherto unsaid, though it was logically implied in the fundamental principles which he took from other thinkers.

If, then, we would understand the ethical system of Maimonides, we must set clearly before our minds the metaphysical assumptions on which it was built. Those assumptions are so far removed from the philosophical and scientific conceptions of our own time that the modern man can scarcely grasp them. But in those days even the greatest thinkers believed these airy abstractions to be the solid truths of philosophy, rock-based on incontestable evidences. Hence it is not surprising that Maimonides, like the rest, was convinced beyond doubt that this “scientific” teaching was the uttermost limit of human understanding, and could never be changed or modified. So absolute, indeed, was his conviction that he went so far as to put this teaching in a dogmatic form, as though it had been a revelation from above.[89]

The following is an outline of his dogmas, so far as is necessary for our purpose:

“All bodies beneath the firmament are compounded of matter and form.”[90] But “form” here is not “form as vulgarly understood, which is _the picture and image of the thing_”; it is “the natural form,” that is to say, the reality of the thing, “that by virtue of which it is what it is,” as distinct from other things which are not of its kind.[91]

“Matter is never _perceived_ without form, nor form without matter; it is man who divides existing bodies in his consciousness, and _knows_ that they are compounded of matter and form.”[92] For since the form is the reality, by virtue of which the thing is what it is, it follows that matter without form would be a thing without a real existence of its own: in other words, a mere intellectual abstraction. And it is superfluous to add that form without matter does not exist in the sublunar world, which consists wholly of “bodies.”[93]

“The nature of matter is that form cannot _persist_ in it, but it continually divests itself of one form and takes on another.” It is because of this property of matter that things come into being and cease to be, whereas form by its nature does not desire change, and ceases to be only “on account of its connection with matter.” Hence “_generic_ forms are all _constant_,” though they exist in _individuals which change_, which come and go; but _individual_ forms necessarily perish, since their existence is possible only in combination with finite matter.[94]

“The soul of all flesh is its form,” and the body is the matter in which this form clothes itself. “When, therefore, the body, which is compounded of the elements, is dissolved, the soul perishes, because it exists only with the body” and has no permanent existence except _generically_, like other forms.[95]

“The soul is one, but it has many different faculties,” and therefore philosophers speak of parts of the soul. “By this they do not mean that it is divisible as bodies are; they merely enumerate its different _faculties_.” The parts of the soul, in this sense, are five: the nutritive, the sensitive, the imaginative, the emotional, and the rational. The first four parts are common to man and to other animals, though “each kind of animal has a particular soul” special to itself, which functions in it in a particular way, so that, for instance, the emotion of a man is not like the emotion of an ass. But the essential superiority of the soul of man lies in its possession of the additional fifth part—the rational: this is “that power in man by which he thinks and acquires knowledge and distinguishes between wrong actions and right.”[96]

Thus the soul of man differs from the souls of other living things only in the greater variety and higher quality of its functions. In essence it is, like “the soul of all flesh,” simply a form associated with matter, having no existence apart from the body. When the body is resolved into its elements the soul also perishes with all its parts, _including the rational_.

This extreme conclusion had already been deduced from the teaching of Aristotle by some of his early commentators (such as Alexander Aphrodisius). There were, indeed, other commentators who, unable to abandon belief in the survival of the soul, tried to explain Aristotle’s words in conformity with that belief by excluding the rational part from the “natural form” and attributing to it a separate and eternal existence.[97] But Maimonides was too logical not to see the inconsistency involved in that interpretation; and so he sided with the extremists, though their view was absolutely opposed to that belief in personal immortality which in his day had come to be generally accepted by Jews. Had he been content with that view alone, he would inevitably have gone back to the conception of primitive Judaism, as we find it in the Pentateuch: that immortality belongs not to the individual, but to the nation; that the national form persists for ever, like the generic form in living things, and the changing individuals are its matter. In that case his whole ethical system would have been very different from what it is. But Maimonides supplemented the teaching of Aristotle by another idea, which he took from the Arabs; and this idea, amplified and completed, he made the basis of his ethical system, which thereby acquired a new and original character, distinguished by its fusion of the social and the individual elements.

The idea is in substance this: that while reason, which is present in a human being from birth, is only one of the faculties of the soul, which is a unity of all its parts and ceases wholly to exist when the body ceases, yet this faculty is no more than a “potential faculty,” by virtue of which its possessor is able to apprehend ideas; and therefore its cessation is inevitable only if it remains throughout its existence in its original condition—in the condition, that is, of a “potential faculty” whose potentiality has not been realised. But if a human being makes use of this faculty and attains to the actual apprehension of Ideas, then his intellect has proceeded from the stage of potentiality to that of actuality: it has achieved real existence, which is permanent and indestructible, like the existence of those Ideas which it has absorbed into itself and with which it has become one. Thus we are to distinguish between the “potential intellect,” which is given to a human being when he comes into the world, and is merely a function of the body, and the “acquired intellect,” which a human being wins for himself by apprehending the Ideas. This acquired intellect “is not a function of the body and is really separate from the body.” Hence it does not cease to exist with the cessation of the body; it persists for ever, like the other “separate Intelligences.”[98]

Now since the form of every existing thing is that individual essence by virtue of which it is what it is and is distinguished from all other existing things, it is clear that the acquired intellect, which gives its possessor immortality, is the essence of the human being who has been privileged to acquire it: in other words, his true form, by which he is distinguished from the rest of mankind. In other men the form is the transient soul given to them at birth; but in him who has the acquired intellect even the soul itself is only a kind of matter. His essential form is “the higher knowledge,” “_the form of the soul_,” which he has won for himself by assimilating “Ideas which are separate from matter.”[99]

Thus mankind is divided into two species, the difference between which is greater than that between mankind as a whole and other kinds of animals. For man is distinguished from the rest of animate nature only by having a distinctive form: in quality his form is like the forms of other living things, seeing that in his case as in theirs the individual form perishes. But the distinctive form of the man who has the acquired intellect is distinct in _quality_; for it persists for ever even after its separation from matter. Its affinity is not with the other forms in the lower world, but with those “separate forms” in the world above.[100]

Thus far Maimonides followed the Arabs. But here the Arab philosophers stopped: they did not probe this idea further, did not carry it to its logical conclusions. Maimonides, on the contrary, refused to stop half-way; he did not shrink from the extremest consequences of the idea.

First of all, he defined the content and the method of the intellectual process by which man attains to “acquired intellect.” If we say that the intellect becomes actual and eternal by comprehending the Ideas and becoming one with them,[101] it follows that the content of the Ideas themselves must be actual and eternal. For how could something real and eternal be created by the acquisition of something itself unreal or not eternal? Thus we exclude from the category of Ideas by the apprehension of which the acquired intellect is obtained: (1) those sciences which contain only abstract laws and not the explanation of real things, such as mathematics and logic; (2) those sciences which teach not what actually exists, but what ought to be done for the achievement of certain objects, such as ethics and æsthetics; (3) the knowledge of individual forms, which have only a temporary existence in combination with matter, such as the histories of famous men and the like. All knowledge of this kind, though it is useful and in some cases even necessary as preparation, is not in itself capable of making the intellect actual. What, then, are the Ideas by the apprehension of which the intellect does become actual? They are those whose content is true and eternal Being. This Being includes (going from lower to higher): (1) the generic forms of all things in the lower world, which are, as we know, constant; (2) the heavenly bodies, which, though compounded of matter and form, are eternal; (3) the forms which are free of matter (God and the separate Intelligences).[102] All this relates to the _content_ of the intellectual process; but there is also a very important definition of its _method_—a definition which is implied in the conception itself. The result must be achieved _by the intellect’s own activity_: that is to say, man must apprehend the truth of Being by rational proofs, and must not simply accept truth from others by an act of faith. For apprehension by this latter method is purely external; reason has had no active part in it, and therefore that union of the intellect with its object, which is what makes the intellect actual, is lacking.[103]

And now let us see what are the ethical consequences of this idea.

The question of the _ultimate_ purpose of the universe is for Maimonides an idle question, because it is not within our power to find a satisfactory answer. For whatever purpose we find, it is always possible to ask: What is the purpose of that purpose? And in the end we are bound to say: “God willed it so,” or, “His wisdom decided so.” But at the same time Maimonides agrees with Aristotle and his school that the _proximate_ purpose of all that exists in this world of ours is man. For in that “course of genesis and destruction” which goes on in all the genera of existing things we see a kind of striving on the part of matter to attain to the most perfect form possible (“to produce the most perfect being that can be produced”); and since “man is the most perfect being formed of matter,” it follows that “in this respect it can truly be said that all earthly things exist for man.”[104]

Now if man is the proximate purpose of all things on earth, “we are compelled to inquire further, why man exists and what was the purpose of his creation.” Maimonides’ view of the human soul being what it is, there is, of course, a ready answer to this question. The purpose of man’s existence, like that of all material existence, is “to produce the most perfect being that can be produced”: and what is the most perfect being if not the possessor of the “acquired intellect,” who has attained the most perfect form possible to man? The purpose of man’s life, then, is “to picture the Ideas in his soul.” For “only wisdom can add to his inner strength and raise him from low to high estate; for he was a man potentially, and has now become a man actually, and man before he thinks and acquires knowledge is esteemed an animal.”[105]

But if this is so, can we still ask what is the highest moral duty and what is the most perfect moral good? Obviously, there is no higher moral duty than this: that man strive to fulfil that purpose for which he was created; and there is no more perfect moral good than the fulfilment of that purpose. All other human activities are only “to preserve man’s existence, to the end that that one activity may be fulfilled.”[106]

Here, then, we reach a new moral criterion and a complete “transvaluation of values” as regards human actions in their moral aspect. Every action has a moral value, whether positive or negative, only in so far as it helps or hinders man in his effort to fulfil the purpose of his being—the actualisation of his intellect. “Good” in the moral sense is all that helps to this end; “evil” is all that hinders. If we determine according to this view the positions of good actions in the ethical scale, we shall find that higher and lower have changed places. At the very top, of course, will stand that one activity which leads direct to the goal—the apprehension of eternal Being by rational proof: that is to say, the study of physics and metaphysics. Below this the scale bifurcates into the two main lines of study and action. In the sphere of study, mathematics and logic have special moral importance, because knowledge of these sciences is a necessary preliminary to the understanding of Being by rational proof. Below them come subjects which have a practical object (ethics, etc.): for the actions with which these subjects deal are themselves only means to the attainment of the supreme end, and therefore the study of these subjects is but a means to a means.[107] In the sphere of action, again, there are different degrees. Those human actions which have as their object the satisfaction of bodily needs have positive moral value only in a limited sense: in so far as they effectively keep off physical pain and mental distraction, and thus allow a man to give himself untroubled to the pursuit of the Ideas.[108] Above these are actions which are connected with “perfection of character,” because that perfection is necessary for the attainment of true wisdom. “For while man pursues after his lusts, and makes feeling master over intellect, and enslaves his reason to his passions, the divine power—that is, Reason—cannot become his.”[109] Hence even perfection of character has no absolute moral value, any more than other things which appertain to practical life. The moral value of everything is determined by its relation to the fulfilment of the intellectual purpose, and by that alone.[110]

Starting from this standpoint, Maimonides lays down the principle that virtue is “the mean which is equidistant from both extremes.”[111] This principle is taken, of course, from Aristotle’s doctrine of virtue. But Aristotle did not set up a higher moral criterion by reference to which the mean point could be determined in every case. For him all virtue was really but a code of good manners to which the polite Greek should conform, being enabled by his own good taste to fasten instinctively on the point equidistant from the ugliness of the two extremes. Not so Maimonides, the Jew. He made this principle the basis of morality in the true sense, because he coupled with it a formulation of the supreme moral end. This moral end, for which the virtues are a preparation,[112] compels us and enables us to distinguish between the extremes and the mean. For the extremes, being apt to impair physical health or mental peace, prevent a man from fulfilling his intellectual function; the mean is that which helps him on his road.[113]

But with all this we have not yet a complete answer to our question about the purpose of the existence of the human race as a whole. We know that the human race really consists of two different species: “potential man” and “actual man.” The second species, indeed, does not come into existence from the start as an independent species, but is produced by development out of the first. But this development is a very long one, and depends on many conditions which are difficult of fulfilment, so that only a few men—sometimes only “one in a generation”—are privileged to complete it, while the great majority of mankind remains always at the stage of “potential man.” Thus the question remains: What is the purpose of the existence of the great mass of men “who cannot picture the Idea in their souls”? For when we say that all material things exist for the sake of the existence of man, we do not mean that all other things are but a “necessary evil,” an evil incidental to the production of the desired end—in other words, merely Nature’s unsuccessful experiments in her struggle towards “the production of the most perfect being that can be produced,” like the many imperfect specimens of his art that the inexpert artificer turns out before he succeeds in creating one that is perfect. We cannot so regard them in the face of the evidence that we have of the wonderful wisdom of creative nature, which proves that the Artificer can do his work in the way best fitted to achieve his object. We must therefore assume that “things do not exist for nothing”; that Nature, in her progress towards the production of the most perfect being, has formed all other things for the benefit of that most perfect being, whether for food or “for his advantage otherwise than by way of food,” in such a way that the sum-total of things in the inferior world is not merely a ladder by which to ascend to the production of man, but also a means to secure the permanence of man when once he has been produced. It follows, therefore, that all the millions of men “who cannot picture the Idea in their souls” cannot be void of purpose, like the spoilt creations of the artist, which, not being suited to their object, are left lying about until they perish of themselves. There must of necessity be some advantage in their existence, as in that of the other kinds of created things. What, then, is this advantage? The answer is implied in the question. “Potential man,” like other earthly things, exists without doubt for the benefit of the “perfect being,” of “actual man.” In conformity with this view Maimonides lays it down that “these men exist for two reasons. First, to serve the one man (the ‘perfect’): for man has many wants, and Methuselah’s life were not long enough to learn all the crafts whereof a man has absolute need for his living: and when should he find leisure to learn and to acquire wisdom? The rest of mankind, therefore, exists to set right those things that are necessary to them in the commonwealth, to the end that the Wise Man may find his needs provided for and that wisdom may spread. And secondly, the man without wisdom exists because the Wise are very few, and therefore the masses were created to make a society for the Wise, that they be not lonely.”[114]

Thus the existence of the majority of mankind has a purpose of its own, which is different from that of the existence of the chosen minority. This minority is an end in itself—it is the embodiment of the most perfect form in the inferior world; whereas the purpose of the majority lies not in its own existence, but in the fact that it creates the conditions necessary to the existence of the minority: it creates, that is, human society with all its cultural possessions (in the material sense), without which it is impossible that wisdom should spread.

Thus we have introduced into ethics a new element—the social element.

For if each man could attain the degree of “actual man” without dependence on the help of human society for the provision of his needs, the moral criterion would be purely individual. Each man would be free to apply for himself the formula at which we arrived above:—all that helps me to fulfil my intellectual function is for me morally good; all that hinders me is for me morally evil. But if the attainment of the supreme end is possible only for the few, and is possible for them only through the existence of the society of the many, which has for its function the creation of the conditions most favourable to the production of the perfect being: then we are confronted with a new moral criterion, social in character. All that helps towards the perfection of society in the manner required for the fulfilment of its function is morally good; all that retards this development is morally evil. This moral criterion is binding for the minority and the majority alike. The majority, whose existence has no purpose beyond their participation in the work of society, can obviously have no other moral criterion than the social. But even the minority, though they are capable of attaining the supreme end, and have therefore an individualistic moral criterion, are none the less bound to subordinate themselves to the social criterion where the two are in conflict. For as society becomes more perfect, and the material basis is provided with less expenditure of effort, so much the greater will be the possibility of producing the perfect being with more regularity and frequency. Hence from the point of view of the supreme end of the whole human race—and that is the source of moral duty—the well-being of society is more important than that of an individual man, even though he belong to the perfect few.[115]

From this point of view all branches of man’s work which further the perfection of society and the lightening of the burden of life’s needs have a moral value, because they help more or less to create that environment which is necessary for the realisation of the most perfect form in the chosen few. Hence, to take one instance, Maimonides reckons the fine arts among the things that further the attainment of mankind’s end (though naturally beauty has in his system no independent value): “for the soul grows weary and the mind is confused by the constant contemplation of ugly things, just as the body grows weary in doing heavy work, until it rest and be refreshed, and then it returns to its normal condition: so does the soul also need to take thought for the repose of the senses by contemplating pleasant things until its weariness is dispelled.” Thus “the making of sculptures and pictures in buildings, vessels, and garments” is not “wasted work.”[116]

To sum up: society stands between the two species of men and links them together. For the “actual man” society is a means to the attainment of his end; for the “potential man” it is the purpose of his own being. The “potential man,” then, being in himself but a transient thing, which comes into being and ceases to be, like all other living things, must content himself with the comforting knowledge that his fleeting existence is after all not wasted, because he is a limb of the social body which gives birth to the immortal perfect beings, and his work, in whatever sphere, helps to produce these perfect beings.

Thus Maimonides gets back to the view of early Judaism, which made the life of society the purpose of the life of the individual, although at first he seemed to diverge widely from it in setting up the one “perfect man,” the possessor of “acquired intellect,” as the sole end of the life of humanity at large.

It is possible, indeed, at first sight to find a certain resemblance between Maimonides’ ethics and another doctrine which has recently gained such wide currency—the doctrine of Nietzsche. Both conceive the purpose of human existence to lie in the creation of the most perfect human type; and both make the majority a tool of that minority in which the supreme type is realised. But in fact the two doctrines are essentially different, and the resemblance is only external. In the first place, Nietzsche’s Superman is quite unlike Maimonides’ Superman in character. Nietzsche, Hellenic in spirit, finds the highest perfection in a perfect harmony of all bodily and spiritual excellences. But Maimonides, true to the spirit of Judaism, concentrates on one central point, and gives pre-eminence to a spiritual element—that of intellect. And secondly, the relation of his “actual man” to society is different from that of Nietzsche’s Superman. The Superman seeks an outlet for his powers in the world outside him; he strives to embody his will in action, and tolerates no obstacle in his path. He is therefore eternally at war with human society; for society puts a limit to his will and sets obstacles on his path by means of its moral laws, which have been framed not to suit his individual needs, but to suit the needs of the majority. Maimonides’ “actual man,” on the contrary, aims not at embodying his will in the external world, but at perfecting his form in his inner world. He demands nothing of society except that it satisfy his elementary wants, and so leave him at peace to pursue his inner perfection. He does not therefore regard society as his enemy. On the contrary, he sees in society an ally, without whose aid he cannot attain his end, and whose well-being will secure his own.

II

So far I have purposely refrained from bringing the religious element into the ethics of Maimonides, with the object of showing that he really based his view of human life on philosophy alone, and did not give way a single inch in order to effect a compromise between his philosophy and the religious ideas which were accepted by Jews in his time. None the less, there is no doubt that Maimonides was a religious man, and believed in the divinity of the Law of Moses: only his idea of the nature of religion, its function and its value, was a new one, and differed entirely from the accepted idea, because here also, in the sphere of religion itself, he remained faithful to those fundamental axioms on which he based his moral system.

Does philosophy leave any room for a belief in the existence of a revealed religion—that is to say, in a Law given to men by God through a supernatural revelation of himself to one or to many individuals? This question turns on another: Is the existence of the world independent of time and external cause, or is it the result of a creative act of God, as the Pentateuch teaches? According to the first view, “everything in the Universe is the result of fixed laws, Nature does not change, and there is nothing supernatural.” There is therefore no room for revelation, which upsets the order of nature, and “the whole teaching of Scripture would be rejected.” But if the world is the result of a creative act, and nature is consequently nothing but a revelation of the divine will, made in such time and place as God’s wisdom decreed, then it is no longer impossible that the divine will should one day reveal itself a second time in a supernatural manner. Hence, “accepting the Creation, we find that ... revelation is possible, and that every difficulty in this question is removed.” For if we ask: “Why has God inspired a certain person and not another? Why has he revealed his Law to one particular nation, and at one particular time?” and so forth—“We answer to all these questions: He willed it so; or, His wisdom decided so. Just as he created the world according to his will, at a certain time, in a certain form, and as we do not understand why his will or his wisdom decided upon that peculiar form, and upon that peculiar time, so we do not know why his will or his wisdom determined any of the things mentioned in the preceding questions.”[117]

Maimonides gave much thought to the question of the creation of the world, and examined it from every side. He tried to ascertain whether there was anything conclusive in the evidences adduced by his predecessors in favour of the eternity of the world or of its creation; and he did not scruple to avow that if he had found a convincing proof of the eternity of the world he would not have rejected it out of respect for the _Torah_. But purely philosophic investigation led him to the conclusion that there was really no convincing proof one way or the other. Seeing then, he says, that “the eternity of the universe has not been demonstrated, there is no need to reject Scripture,” and we may believe in the creation theory, which has “the authority of Prophecy,” without any sin against our reason.[118]

But when once we have adopted the creation theory, revelation becomes possible, and there is nothing to prevent our holding the belief which our nation has accepted throughout its history: that at a definite point in time the Law was given to our people from heaven through the instrumentality of the chief of the Prophets, who received a unique inspiration from the divine source, and was taught what to tell his people in the name of God.[119] It is not relevant (as we have seen above) to ask why this Law was given to us and not to others, at that particular time and at no other. But it is relevant to ask what is the purpose of this Law and what benefit it was meant to produce. For it can scarcely be supposed that God would interfere with the order of nature for no advantage or object; and if we cannot understand the working of the divine wisdom in every detail, we must and we can form for ourselves some general conception of the object for which the divine teaching was given to us and the way in which it can help men to attain their end.[120]

Now it is clear that the divine teaching, whether on its theoretical or on its practical side, cannot lead a man straight to his supreme goal—the raising of his intellect from potentiality to actuality. For this goal, as we know, is to be attained not by good actions, and not even by the _received_ knowledge of truth, but only by the activity of the intellect itself, which must arrive at truth by the long road of scientific proof. And if religion cannot raise its followers to the stage of “actual man” in a direct way, we must conclude that its whole purpose is to prepare the instrument which is necessary for the attainment of that end: to wit, human society, which creates the environment of the “actual man.” The aim of religion, then, is “to regulate the soul and the body” of society at large, so as to make it capable of producing the greatest possible number of “actual men.” To this end religion must necessarily be popular: its teachings and prescriptions must be aimed not at the chosen few, who strive after ultimate perfection, but at the great mass of society. To this mass it must give, in the first place, true opinions in a form suited to the intelligence of the many; secondly, a code of morals, individual and social, which makes for the health of society and the prosperity of its members; and thirdly, a code of religious observances intended to educate the many by keeping these true opinions and moral duties constantly before their minds.[121] In these three ways—the third of which is merely ancillary to the other two—religion aims at raising the cultural level of society, so as to make a clear road for the perfect individual: to provide him from the beginning of his life with an environment of correct opinions and good morals, and save him from the necessity of frittering away his strength in a twofold battle—against the evil conditions of a corrupt society, and against false opinions implanted in himself by that society. Religion is there to save him from this battle against corruption without and falsehood within: to secure that as soon as he shows the ability and the will to attain perfection he shall find favourable conditions prepared for him, and proceed towards his goal without let or hindrance.

This was how Maimonides conceived the function of the divine religion; this was how he was bound to conceive it, his philosophy being what it was. But as he was also persuaded by various reasoned proofs that the Law of Moses was the divine religion,[122] he could obviously have no doubt that this Law must contain on its theoretical side the “true opinions” (that is, those philosophical opinions which he considered true), albeit in popular form, and on its practical side a moral doctrine for the individual and for society which was adapted to the end desiderated by his philosophy, together with the form of religious observance best calculated to educate society in the right opinions and the right morality.

It is at this point that Maimonides’ task becomes difficult. Armed with this _a priori_ judgment, he comes to close quarters with the _Torah_: and he finds that in many matters, both of theory and of practice, it is, if taken at its face value, diametrically opposed to what his pre-conceived ideas would lead him to expect. The beliefs embodied in the _Torah_ seem to be directly opposed to the most fundamental philosophical truths of Maimonides’ system; the actions prescribed in the _Torah_ contain much that it is difficult to reconcile with the social purpose of the divine religion as conceived by that system. What course, then, was open to Maimonides? To compromise between philosophical and religious truth, as many had done before, was for him impossible. For every compromise means simply that both sides give way; and how could Maimonides, with his conviction that the attainment of truth by means of proof is the end of human existence and the only way to eternal happiness, give up one jot of this truth for the sake of another truth, of inferior value inasmuch as it has come to us only through tradition? Thus he has but one possible course. Necessity compels him to subdue religion absolutely to the demands of philosophy: in other words, to explain the words of the _Torah_ throughout in conformity with the truth of philosophy, and to make the _Torah_ fulfil in every part the function which philosophy imposes on it.

This necessity worked wonders. By dint of enormous labour Maimonides discovered various extraordinary ways of interpreting the _Torah_; with wonderful skill he found support for his interpretations in words and phrases scattered about the Scriptures and the Talmud; until at last he succeeded in making religion what it had to be according to his belief.

This is not the place to explain Maimonides’ methods of exegesis in detail. For us to-day they are but a sort of monument to the weakness of the written word in the face of a living psychological force which demands that “yes” shall become “no” and “no” be turned into “yes.” This psychological force led Maimonides to turn the “living God” of the _Torah_ into an abstract philosophical conception, empty of all content except a collection of negations; to make the “Righteous Man” of Judaism a philosopher blessed with “acquired intellect”; to transform the “future world” of the Talmud into the union of the acquired intellect with the “active intellect”; to metamorphose the Biblical penalty of “cutting off” into the disappearance of the form when the matter is resolved: and so forth. All this he did in conformity with his “philosophic truth,” of which he refused to change one atom.[123]

So, too, with the practical side of religion. Only in a very roundabout way could practical religion be brought under the general principles which Maimonides deduced from his philosophy. The difficulty was especially great in the case of the laws of religious worship, many of which have no apparent educative value as a means of confirming true opinions and morality. But here also necessity did its work, and Maimonides managed to find educational “reasons” for all the religious laws, not excepting those which seem on the face of them actually to confirm false opinions and to arouse inclinations opposed to morality—such as, for instance, sacrifices and the accompanying rites.[124] None the less, he was compelled after all his hard labour to lay down this strange axiom: that there is a reason for the commandments in a general way, but not for their details, these having been ordained only because there can be no universal without particulars of some kind or other.[125]

Maimonides had an easier task in bringing the moral laws of the _Torah_ within his system. In themselves these laws demanded as a rule no heroic exegesis to show their utility for the social order: indeed, the _Torah_ often emphasises this utility, which in any case is self-evident in most commandments of this class. But in arranging these commandments in order of moral value Maimonides was compelled to coerce religion by his characteristic methods into conformity with his system, according to which good actions—whether moral or religious—are of an inferior order, having no value except that of a necessary preparation of the individual and of society for the attainment of the supreme moral good, the perfection of intellect. This attitude of Maimonides towards moral actions, which we have met already as a philosophical postulate, is just as strongly maintained after such actions have been invested with a religious sanctity. Hence religion affects Maimonides’ philosophical ethics only to this extent, that it makes all the observances of religious worship a moral duty, equal in value to the other moral duties, because religious worship is one way of leading mankind to the attainment of the supreme moral good in the chosen individuals.

What, then, is the “divine religion”—that is to say, the teaching of Judaism—according to the system of Maimonides?

On its theoretical side it is popular metaphysics, and on its practical side social ethics and pædagogics. It cannot bring man to his ultimate perfection; its whole function is to regulate society—that is, the masses—in accordance with the requirements of the perfect man. Hence religion is not above reason, but below it: just as the masses, for whom religion was made, are below the perfect man. Reason is the supreme judge; religion is absolutely subordinate to reason, and cannot abrogate one jot of its decisions. For God, who implanted the reasoning faculty in man, that by it he might attain truth and win eternal Being, could not at the same time demand of man that he believe in something opposed to that very truth which is attained by reason, and is the goal of his existence and the summit of his happiness. Even if a Prophet works miracles in heaven and earth, and requires us therefore to believe that there has been prophetically revealed to him some “divine” truth which is opposed to reason, we must not believe him nor “regard his signs.” “For reason, which declares his testimony false, is more to be trusted than the eye which sees his signs.”[126]

But all this does not detract from the general and eternal duty of observing in practice all the commandments of the divine religion. Religion, like nature, is a creation of God, in which the divine will is embodied in the form of immutable laws. And just as the laws of nature are eternal and universally valid, admitting of no exception, though their usefulness is only general, and “in some individual cases they cause injury as well,” so also “the divine guidance contained in the _Torah_ must be absolute and general,” and does not suffer change or modification “according to the different conditions of persons and times.” For the divine creation is “that which has the absolute perfection possible to its species”; and that which is absolutely perfect cannot be perfected by change or modification, but only made less perfect.[127] Religion, it is true, was given through a Prophet, who received the divine inspiration; but when once it had been given it was placed outside the scope of creation, and became, like Nature after its creation, something independent, with laws which can be investigated and understood by the function of reason, but cannot be changed or abrogated by the function of prophecy. It may happen, indeed, that in accordance with the divine will, which was made an element in the nature of things when nature was created, the Prophet can change the order of the universe in some particular detail for a moment, so as to give a sign of the truth of his prophecy;[128] and similarly the Prophet can sometimes abrogate temporarily some point of the Law, to meet some special need of the time. But just as the Prophet cannot modify or change completely any law of nature, so he cannot modify or change completely any law of the _Torah_. Nor can he, by his function of prophecy, decide between opposing views on a matter which is capable of different interpretations, because his opinion on a question of this kind is important by virtue of his being a wise man, and not by virtue of his being a Prophet, and it is therefore no more decisive than that of another wise man who is not a Prophet. And “if a thousand Prophets, all equal to Elijah and Elisha, held one view, and a thousand and one wise men held the opposite view, we should have to follow the majority and decide according to the thousand and one wise men and not according to the thousand venerable Prophets.” For “God has not permitted us to learn from Prophets, but from wise men of reasoning power and knowledge.”[129]

What I have said so far, in this section and the preceding one, is sufficient, I think, to give a clear idea of the fundamental beliefs of Maimonides as to the function of man and his moral and religious duties. But before we pass on to consider how Maimonides tried to make these ideas the common property of his people, and what mark his system has left on the development of Judaism, it is worth while to mention here that Maimonides himself has given us the essence of his system in a perfectly unmistakable form, by dividing men into various classes according to their position on the scale of perfection. He compares the striving of man after the perfection of his form to the striving of a king’s subjects “to be with the king in his palace”; and using this simile he finds in mankind six successive stages, as follows:—

1. Men who are outside the country altogether—that is, savages “who have no religion, neither one based on speculation, nor one received by tradition.” They are considered “as speechless animals.”