their remnants were absorbed by younger and more vigorous peoples.
Others (the Hindoos and Persians) relapsed into a semi-barbarous
state; and a third class (the Chinese) were arrested in their growth,
and remained fixed in immobility. The best that the antique Orient had
to bequeath in the way of spiritual possessions fell to the share of
the classic nations of the West, the Greeks and the Romans. They
greatly increased the heritage by their own spiritual achievements,
and so produced a much more complex and diversified civilization,
which has served as the substratum for the further development of the
better part of mankind. Even the classic nations had to step aside as
soon as their historical mission was fulfilled. They left the field
free for the younger nations, with greater capability of living, which
at that time had barely worked their way up to the beginnings of a
civilization. One after the other, during the first two centuries of
the Christian era, the members of this European family of nations
appeared in the arena of history. They form the kernel of the
civilized part of mankind at the present day.

Now, if we examine this accepted classification with a view to finding
the place belonging to the Jewish people in the chronological series,
we meet with embarrassing difficulties, and finally arrive at the
conclusion that its history cannot be accommodated within the compass
of the classification. Into which of the three historical groups
mentioned could the Jewish people be put? Are we to call it one of the
most ancient, one of the ancient, or one of the modern nations? It is
evident that it may lay claim to the first description, as well as to
the second and the last. In company with the most ancient nations of
the Orient, the Jewish people stood at the "threshold of history." It
was the contemporary of the earliest civilized nations, the Egyptians
and the Chaldeans. In those remote days it created and spread a