ease. This work is divided into eight parts, devoted
respectively to theology, astronomy, pharmacy, hygiene, venereal
diseases, botany, cosmography, and chemistry. It is illustrated with
several plates, among them the picture of an astrolabe and one of the
human body treated as a house. From the numerous editions through which
it passed (Venice, 1707, 1715, 1728, 1769), we may conclude that it met
with marked success.[37]

* * * * *

To understand the _raison d'Etre_ of the Haskalah movement, it may not
be superfluous to cast a glance at the inner social and religious life
of the Slavonic Jews during pre-Haskalah times. The labors of the farmer
are crowned with success only when nature lends him a helping hand. His
soil must be fertile, and blessed with frequent showers. Nor would the
Maskilim have accomplished their aim, had the material they found at
hand been different from what it was.

The Jews in the land of the Slavonians were fortunate in being regarded
as aliens in a country which, as we have seen, they inhabited long
before those who claimed to be its possessors by divine right of
conquest. If their position was precarious, their sufferings were those
of a conquered nation. As the whim and fancy of the reigning prince,
knyaz, varied, they were induced one day to settle in the country by the
offer of the most flattering privileges, and the next day they were
expelled, only to be requested to return again. Now their synagogues and
cemeteries were exempt from taxation, now an additional poll-tax or
land-tax was levied on every Jew (serebshizna); one day they were
allowed to live unhampered by restrictions, then they were prohibited to
wear certain garments and ornaments, and commanded to use yellow caps
and kerchiefs to distinguish them from the Gentiles (1566).

But all this was the consequence of political subjugation. Judged by the
standard of the times, they were veritable freemen, freer than the
Huguenots of France and the Puritans of England. They were left
unmolested in the administration of their internal affairs, and were
permitted to appoint their own judges, enforce their own laws, and
support their own institutions. Forming a state within a state, they
developed a civilization contrasting strongly with that round about
them, and comparing favorably with some of the features of ours of
to-day. Slavonic Jewry was divided into four districts, consisting of
the more impo