which the Hebrew, both of the Old and
the New Testament, threw himself upon his ideal of righteousness, and
which inspired the incomparable definition of the great Christian
virtue, Faith--_the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of
things not seen_--this energy of devotion to its ideal has belonged to
Hebraism alone. As our idea of perfection widens beyond the narrow
limits to which the over-rigour of Hebraising has tended to confine it,
we shall yet come again to Hebraism for that devout energy in embracing
our ideal, which alone can give to man the happiness of doing what he
knows. "If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them!"--the last
word for human infirmity will always be that. For this word, reiterated
with a power now sublime, now affecting, but always admirable, our race
will, as long as the world lasts, return to Hebraism."

Having thus described the function of Hebraism, Arnold goes on to define
Hellenism as "the intelligence driving at those ideas which are, after
all, the basis of right practice, the ardent sense for all the new and
changing combinations of them which man's development brings with it,
the indomitable impulse to know and adjust them perfectly." These two
great forces divide the empire of the world between them; and we call
them Hebraism and Hellenism after the two races of men who have most
signally illustrated them. "Hebraism and Hellenism--between these two
points of influence moves our world." The idea of Hellenism is to see
things as they are: the idea of Hebraism is conduct and obedience. Our
aim should be to combine the merits of both ideas, and be "evenly and
happily balanced between them." Enlarging on this text, he traces the
working of the two principles, which ought not to be rivals but have
been made such by the perverseness of men, philosophy and history; and
then, turning to our own day and its doings, he says that Puritanism,
which originally was a reaction of the conscience and moral sense
against the indifference and lax conduct of the Renascence, has gone
counter, during the last two centuries, to the main stream of human
advance; has hindered men from trying to see things as they really are,
and has made strictness of conduct the great aim of human life. "It made
the secondary the principal at the wrong moment, and the principal it at
the wrong moment treated as secondary." Hence have arisen all sorts of
confusion and inefficiency. Everywhere we see the s