Jevons

“ In the opinion of Professor Alfred Marshall, the great body of Jevons's economic work ‘will probably be found to have more constructive force than any save that of Ricardo that has been done during the last hundred years.’ As a logician, he sought with considerable success to advance, as well as defend, the position taken up by Boole, and to establish the applicability of his theory of reasoning to all branches of scientific inquiry. ”

“ In 1873 Owens College was housed in new buildings. Jevons contributed a paper on the ‘Railways and the State’ to the volume of ‘Essays and Addresses,’ by the publication of which in 1874 the professors of the college commemorated the event. But though he conscientiously performed his college duties, to which in 1868 a London examinership in political economy had been added, he found the strain of work rather heavy. ”

“ The re-establishment of Judaism, which alone of current religions was intolerant of a rival, seems to have excited the jealousy of their neighbours who had embraced the Greek way of life. The hellenizers had not lost all hope of converting the nation and were indisposed to acquiesce in the concordat. Judas and his zealots were thus able to maintain their prominence and gradually to increase their power. At Joppa, for example, the Jewish settlers—two hundred in all—“were invited to go into boats provided in accordance with the common decree of the city.” ”

“ They are, from the beginning, and for long afterwards in the history of religion, strict to mark what is amiss, and, in that sense, they are jealous gods. And this aspect of the Godhead it is which fills the larger part of the field of religious consciousness, not only in the case of peoples who have failed to recognise the unity of the Godhead, but even in the case of a people like the Jews, who did recognise it. ”

“ The country for ten miles north of Jerusalem was the exposed and highly debatable district ascribed to the young tribe of Benjamin (the favourite “brother” of both Judah and Joseph; Gen. xxxvii., xxxix. sqq.) ; the border-line between the rival kingdoms oscillated, and consequently the political position of the smaller and half-desert Judaean state depended upon the attitude of its neighbours. It is possible that tradition is right in supposing that “Judah went down from his brethren” (Gen. xxxviii. 1; cf. Judg. i. 3) . ”

“ Joḥanan obtained permission to found a college at Jamnia (Jabneh) , which became the centre of Jewish culture. It practically exercised the judicial functions of the Sanhedrin (see Jews, § 40 ad fin.) . That chief literary expression of Pharisaism, the Mishnah, was the outcome of the work begun at Jamnia. Joḥanan solaced his disciples on the fall of the Temple by the double thought that charity could replace sacrifice, and that a life devoted to the religious law could form a fitting continuation of the old theocratic state. ”

“ Post-exilic Judaism.—With Nehemiah and Ezra we enter upon the era in which a new impulse gave to Jewish life and thought that form which became the characteristic orthodox Judaism. It was not a new religion that took root; older tendencies were diverted into new paths, the existing material was shaped to new ends. Judah was now a religious community whose representative was the high priest of Jerusalem. Instead of sacerdotal kings, there were royal priests, anointed with oil, arrayed with kingly insignia, claiming the usual royal dues in addition to the customary rights of the priests. ”

“ The work represented in Nehemiah and Ezra, and put into action by the supporters of an exclusive Judaism, certainly won the day, and their hands have left their impress upon the historical traditions. But Yahwism, like Islam, had its sects and tendencies, and the opponents to the stricter ritualism always had followers. Whatever the predominant party might think of foreign marriages, the tradition of the half-Moabite origin of David serves, in the beautiful idyll of Ruth (q.v.) , to suggest the debt which Judah and Jerusalem owed to one at least of its neighbours. ”

“ The scribe could train the individual in morals and in manners; but the high priest was the ruler of the nation.
As ruler of the nation the high priest paid its tribute to Egypt, its overlord. But Josephus reports of one Onias that for avarice he withheld it. The sequel shows how a Jew might rise to power in the civil service of the Egyptian Empire and yet remain a hero to some of the Jews—provided that he did not intermarry with a Gentile. For Joseph, the son of Tobiah and nephew of Onias, went to court and secured the taxes of Palestine, when they were put up to auction. ”

“ After being the popular favourite of Israel in the little district of Benjamin, he was driven away by the jealousy and animosity of Saul. Gradually strengthening his position by alliance with Judaean clans, he became king at Hebron at the time when Israel suffered defeat in the north. His subsequent advance to the kingship over Judah and Israel at Jerusalem is represented as due to the weak condition of Israel, facilitated by the compliance of Abner; partly, also, to the long-expressed wish of the Israelites that their old hero should reign over them. ”

“ To Samuel of Nehardea (q.v.) belongs the honour of formulating the principle which made it possible for Jews to live under alien laws. Jeremiah had admonished his exiled brothers: “Seek ye the peace of the city whither I have caused you to be carried away captives, and pray unto the Lord for it: for in the peace thereof shall ye have peace” (Jer. xxix. 7) . It was now necessary to go farther, and the rabbis proclaimed a principle which was as influential with the synagogue as “Give unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s” became with the Church. “The law of the government is law” (Baba Qama 113 b.) ”

“ Trypho, the regent of Antiochus VI., put even greater political power into the hands of Jonathan and his brother Simon, but finally seized Jonathan on the pretext of a conference. Simon was thus left to consolidate what had been won in Palestine for the Jews and the family whose head he had become. The weakness of the king enabled him to demand and to secure immunity from taxation. The Jewish aristocracy became peers of the Seleucid kingdom. Simon was declared high priest: Rome and Sparta rejoiced in the elevation of their friend and ally. ”

“ While the extirpation of the cult of Baal was furthered in Israel by Jonadab the Rechabite, it was the “people of the land” who undertook a similar reform in Judah. Jehu (q.v.) became king as the champion of the purer worship of Yahweh. The descendants of the detested Phoenician marriage were rooted out, and unless the close intercourse between Israel and Judah had been suddenly broken, it would be supposed that the new king at least laid claim to the south. ”

“ The position of Judah at this period must be estimated (a) from the preceding years of intimate relationship with Israel to the accession of Jehu, and (b) from the calamity about half a century later when Jerusalem was sacked by Israel. The Judaean narratives do not allow us to fill the gap or to determine whether Judaean policy under the regent Jehoiada would be friendly or hostile to Israel, or whether Judaean nobles may have severed the earlier bond of union. If the latter actually occurred, the hostility of the Israelite prophets is only to be expected. ”

“ The consequences of this blow were momentous; it may be said to inaugurate the ghetto period. In Spain Jewish life had participated in the general life, but the expulsion—while it dispersed 405 the Spanish Jews in Poland, Turkey, Italy and France, and thus in the end contributed to the Jewish emancipation at the French Revolution—for the time drove the Jews within their own confines and barred them from the outside world.65
46. In France, Germany, England, Italy.—In the meantime Jewish life had been elsewhere subjected to other influences which produced a result at once narrower and deeper. ”

“ Denmark and Sweden followed suit with translations, and the expression “eternal Jew” passed as a current term into Czech. In other words, the story in its usual form spread wherever there was a tincture of Protestantism. In southern Europe little is heard of it in this version, though Rudolph Botoreus, parliamentary advocate of Paris (Comm. histor., 1604) , writing in Paris two years after its first appearance, speaks contemptuously of the popular belief in the Wandering Jew in Germany, Spain and Italy. ”

“ I assume that a connection exists, and care only to inquire, What is its nature? Does the science of quantity rest upon that of quality; or, vice versâ, does the science of quality rest upon that of quantity? ”

“ But even he who has read only thus far must know that political economy is no cold-blooded or dismal science, as people say. Is it a dismal thing to relieve the labourer of his load, or to spread his table with the most nutritious food? No doubt the science is dismal enough so far as it leads us to reflect upon the needless misery existing on every side. It is dismal to think of the hundreds of thousands who lengthen out a weary life in workhouses and prisons and infirmaries. Strikes are dismal; lockouts are dismal; want of employment, bankruptcy, dear bread, famine, are all dismal things. ”

“ The political economist, when he inquires how people may most easily acquire riches, does not teach that the rich man should keep his wealth like a miser, nor spend it in luxurious living like a spendthrift. There is absolutely nothing in the science to dissuade the rich man from spending his wealth generously and yet wisely. ”

“ People actually refuse to see that wealth must be increased by producing it where it can be produced most easily and plentifully. Each trade, each town, each nation must furnish what it can yield most cheaply, and other goods must be bought from the places where they also can be raised most easily.
Political economy teaches us to look beyond the immediate effect of what we do, and to seek the good of the whole community, and even of the whole of mankind. The present prosperity of England is greatly due to the science which Adam Smith gave to the world in his "Wealth of Nations." ”

“ A single absolute conflict between fact and hypothesis, is fatal to the hypothesis; falsa in uno, falsa in omnibus.
Seldom, indeed, shall we have a theory free from difficulties and apparent inconsistency with facts. Though one real inconsistency would overturn the most plausible theory, yet there is usually some probability that the fact may be misinterpreted, or that some supposed law of nature, on which we are relying, may not be true. ”

“ It is instructive to observe that a theory which arose from petty games of chance, the rules and the very names of which are forgotten, gradually advanced, until it embraced the most sublime problems of science, and finally undertook to measure the value and certainty of all our inductions. ”

“ It is the foundation of number that every unit shall be distinct from every other unit; but Boole imported the conditions of number into the science of Logic, and produced a system which, though wonderful in its results, was not a system of logic at all. ”

“ It is one of the absurd fallacies of Anglo-Israelism to presuppose that the term " Jew " stands for a bodily descendant of "Judah." It stands for all those from among the sons of Jacob who acknowledged themselves, or were considered, subjects of the theocratic kingdom of Judah, which they expected to be established by the promised " Son of David " the Lion of the tribe of Judah whose reign is to extend not only over " all the tribes of the land" but also " from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth." ”

“ THEORY OF APPROXIMATION. In order that we may gain a true understanding of the kind, degree, and value of the knowledge which we acquire by experimental investigation, it is requisite that we should be fully conscious of its approximate character. We must learn to distinguish between what we can know and cannot know—between the questions which admit of solution, and those which only seem to be solved. Many persons may be misled by the expression exact science, and may think that the knowledge acquired by scientific methods admits of our reaching absolutely true laws, exact to the last degree. ”

“ To apprehend the truth of special cases of inference does not constitute logic; we must apprehend them as cases of more general truths. The object of all science is the separation of what is common and general from what is accidental and different. In a system of logic, if anywhere, we should esteem this generality, and strive to exhibit clearly what is similar in very diverse cases. Hence the great value of general symbols by which we can represent the form of a reasoning process, disentangled from any consideration of the special subject to which it is applied. ”

“ Had the science of numbers been studied for no other purpose, it must have been developed for the calculation of probabilities. All our inferences concerning the future are merely probable, and a due appreciation of the degree of probability depends upon a comprehension of the principles of the subject. I am convinced that it is impossible to expound the methods of induction in a sound manner, without resting them upon the theory of probability. Perfect knowledge alone can give certainty, and in nature perfect knowledge would be infinite knowledge, which is clearly beyond our capacities. ”

“ We cannot adequately understand the difficulties which beset us in certain branches of science, unless we have some clear idea of the vast numbers of combinations or permutations which may be possible under certain conditions. Thus only can we learn how hopeless it would be to attempt to treat nature in detail, and exhaust the whole number of events which might arise. It is instructive to consider, in the first place, how immensely great are the numbers of combinations with which we deal in many arts and amusements. ”