is;;] POETRY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 443 



laid hold of it is ready to rest on it for its own sake. It has 

 come to him as the direct satisfaction of a personal need, 

 and so it is impossible that he should value it only as a 

 link in the chain of reasoned truth. Such an acquisition 

 has little to do with scientific system, but naturally 

 assumes a poetic form, which shall set it forth as a complete 

 thought, with a life and beauty of its own. 



2. Again, such truths are sure to be practical. They 

 centre in human life and in real human interests. As they 

 were born of personal feeling, they continue to move in 

 the personal sphere. And being personal, they must bear 

 directly on the practical concerns of life. The passionate 

 subjectivity of the Hebrew has nothing in common with 

 dreamy, unpractical sentiment alism. The keen eye for 

 business, the shrewdness degenerating into cunning, 

 which is the most universally recognised characteristic 

 of the modern Jew, is not a new feature of the nation. 

 Exactly the same qualities appear in Jacob, whose 

 character is as typical on this side of it as in its deep 

 emotional and religious susceptibility. The practical 

 qualities which so many centuries of isolation and oppres 

 sion have forced into ignoble channels appear in the Old 

 Testament in more worthy activity. No people has so 

 toughly maintained national existence and prosperity in 

 a narrow country, preserved in fertility only by unceasing 

 industry, and exposed on all sides to the ambition of great 

 empires. Surely indubitable proof that the Hebrews 

 were endowed with a strong instinct of self-preservation, 

 with a tenacity of purpose and a power of practical insight 

 capable of coping with the most unfavourable circum 

 stances. It is in truth the preponderance of the emotional 

 rather than of the rational part of the nature that makes 

 a strong personality, able to conquer all difficulties. 

 Intellectual acuteness is often associated with a restless 

 ness of purpose that can attain nothing great. A really 

 deep subjectivity is not to be stirred by slight breezes of 

 sentiment. It moves swiftly and fiercely, casting itself 



