Jewish People and the Laws of Evolution*
THE writer of the following paper is an inventor of national reputation. In conjunction with his brother, Louis Edward Levy, of Philadelphia, he invented an engraved screen for the half-tone process in the photo-engraving business. He has contributed to many scientific journals, but has not been, hitherto, interested in the pressing Jewish problems of the day. It is evident that Zionism has come to mean a practical question, or Mr. Levy would not take the trouble to state his position with regard to it with such clearness and logical force. He believes, if Zionism is abandoned, that the one course open to the Jewish people is thorough assimilation; that is the force of evolution, which no minority people can escape. But he has hopes in Zionism, which will give to the Jewish people an opportunity to preserve those traits of character, that heritage of the past, which will be of subsequent value to the world, and more than anything else, to the Jewish people. Though his argument leads him toward territorialism, that is, the possession of any territory for the Jewish people, he favors Palestine as the future seat of the Jewish nation. We commend the paper to the serious attention of our readers, who may find many points therein which they may accept.—Editors, THE MACCABAEAN.
I do not expect to tell anything new in this short paper. I shall be very well satisfied if I succeed in conveying to you even partially a view that has strongly impressed itself upon my mind.
I am convinced that the relation of the Jew to his surroundings and environment will follow laws that have been found to be universal in their application. I see no reason why the Jew, any more than any other man or animal, should be above the conditions which govern the development of species. The influence of environment upon the origin and development of species has been clearly set forth by Spencer, Huxley, Darwin, and other exponents of the theory of evolution, and the same class of considerations that effects the physical development of species is clearly shown to exert an equally powerful influence on the development of civilization.
*Read before the Pharisees, Philadelphia, January, 1905.
I think that the general principles involved in the theory of evolution and in the development of civilization, as expounded by Henry Thomas Buckle, are so universally accepted that mere mention alone is necessary. According to these doctrines the physical, spiritual, and intellectual development of individuals is subject to environment and will take place along the lines impelled by the nature of this environment.
The antecedents constitute the resisting force, acting in the nature of inertia and opposing the tendency of surrounding influences to modify the type. This development may well be regarded as a struggle for supremacy between two opposing forces; heredity tending to preserve, and environment to modify the type.
No fact in natural science is better established than the truth that if such a struggle is sufficiently prolonged the force of a changed environment will infallibly prevail. The duration of the struggle