Indeed, we have before our very eyes to-day the beginning of exactly such a reaction in the West of Europe and the United States of America, and it is the presence of that reaction which has caused this book to be written. The attempt at a Liberal solution has already failed in our hands; if it had not failed there would be no more to be said, or, at any rate, we could postpone the discussion until the actual difficulty began. But we have only to look around us to see that, after these few years, this one lifetime, during which the experiment has flourished in the highest part of civilization, it is already breaking down. Everywhere the old questions are being asked, everywhere the old complaints are being raised, everywhere the old perils are reappearing. We must seek some solution, for if we fail to find it we know from the past what tragedies are in store for us both. There is a problem, a most direct and urgent problem. Once it is recognized, a solution of it is necessarily demanded.
But it is not enough to show that the mere denial of the existence of that problem--the old nineteenth century Liberal policy--was false and bound to break down. It is just as necessary, if we appreciate how practical and immediate the problem is, to state it and illustrate it from contemporary events. It is not enough to show that the attempted Liberal policy has failed. One must also, before trying to discover a solution, analyse the nature of the problem as it presents itself at the moment, and that is what I propose to do in the next chapter.
I said in my last that the old solution of ignoring or denying the Jewish problem was bound to break down and had broken down, and this was tantamount to saying that the problem persists. But I said one must go farther and state the full nature of that problem as it stands at this moment before one could attempt a practical solution.
It is not enough to say that a person who imagines himself immortal and immune from disease is, as a fact, dangerously ill, and that the break-down of his health has disproved his theory. One must go on to find out exactly what is the matter with him, and, if possible, what the cure for the trouble may be.
The Jewish problem in its larger sense I have defined in the first chapter of this book, and that as I think every one defines it, including all the many Jews who have discussed the matter. It is the presence within one political organism of another political organism at friction with it: the strains set up by such an unnatural state of affairs; the risk of disaster to the lesser body and of hurt to both if it remain unremedied. The true solution therefore is only to be discovered in some policy which will permanently relieve the strain and re-establish normal relations. The end of such a solution should be the functioning, as far as possible, of both parties, at their ease and without disturbance one to the other.