religious world-idea underlying an exalted social and moral system
surpassing everything produced in this sphere by its Oriental
contemporaries. Again, with the classical Greeks and Romans, it forms
the celebrated historical triad universally recognized as the source
of all great systems of civilization. Finally, in fellowship with the
nations of to-day, it leads an historical life, striding onward in the
path of progress without stay or interruption. Deprived of political
independence, it nevertheless continues to fill a place in the world
of thought as a distinctly marked spiritual individuality, as one of
the most active and intelligent forces. How, then, are we to
denominate this omnipresent people, which, from the first moment of
its historical existence up to our days, a period of thirty-five
hundred years, has been developing continuously. In view of this
Methuselah among the nations, whose life is co-extensive with the
whole of history, how are we to dispose of the inevitable barriers
between "the most ancient" and "the ancient," between "the ancient"
and "the modern" nations--the fateful barriers which form the
milestones on the path of the historical peoples, and which the Jewish
people has more than once overstepped?

A definition of the Jewish people must needs correspond to the
aggregate of the concepts expressed by the three group-names, most
ancient, ancient, and modern. The only description applicable to it is
"the historical nation of all times," a description bringing into
relief the contrast between it and all other nations of modern and
ancient times, whose historical existence either came to an end in
days long past, or began at a date comparatively recent. And granted
that there are "historical" and "unhistorical" peoples, then it is
beyond dispute that the Jewish people deserves to be called "the most
historical" (_historicissimus_). If the history of the world be