MATTHEW AENOLD'S CRITICISM 93 



Arnold divides the forces that move the world into 

 two grand divisions, — Hellenism and Hebraism, the 

 Greek idea and the Jewish idea, the power of intel- 

 lect and the power of conscience. "The uppermost 

 idea with Hellenism is to see things as they really 

 are; the uppermost idea with Hebraism is conduct 

 and obedience. Nothing can do away with this in- 

 effaceable difference. The Greek quarrel with the 

 body and its desires is that they hinder right think- 

 ing; the Hebrew quarrel with them is that they 

 hinder right acting." "An unclouded clearness of 

 mind, an unimpeded play of thought, " is the aim of 

 the one; "strictness of conscience," fidelity to prin- 

 ciple, is the mainspring of the other. As, in this 

 classification, Carlyle would stand for unmitigated 

 Hebraism, so Arnold himself stands for pure Hellen- 

 ism; as the former's Hebraism upon principle was 

 backed up by the Hebraic type of mind, its grandeur, 

 its stress of conscience, its opulent imagination, its 

 cry for judgment and justice, etc., so Arnold's con- 

 viction of the superiority of Hellenism as a remedy 

 for modern ills is backed up by the Hellenic type of 

 mind, its calmness, its lucidity, its sense of form and 

 measure. Indeed, Arnold is probably the purest 

 classic writer that English literature, as yet, has to 

 show ; classic not merely in the repose and purity of 

 his style, but in the unity and simplicity of his 

 mind. What primarily distinguishes the antique 

 mind from the modern mind is its more fundamental 

 singleness and wholeness. It is not marked by the 

 same specialization and development on particular 



