THE essential life of the modern world, its
chief creating and animating forces, come
from two countries, Palestine and Greece (for
convenience I shall group Christianity and Judaism
together and not attempt to analyse their differences).
Suppose these countries had never been, take away
their contributions, and what we mean by Europe
would not exist. He who knows Palestine and
Greece, knows the germ of four-fifths or more of
Western civilization, and has seen its animating
and sustaining forces in their simplest and purest
form. This chapter attempts to indicate the chief
contribution made to our civilization, in points
where Hellenism is deficient, by that Judaic-Christian
view of life for which no single name exists, but
which Matthew Arnold called Hebraism.

There are obvious difficulties in the attempt.
The subject is vast. Further, impartial treatment
is difficult. 'The eyes of critics, whether in com-
mending or carping, are both on one side, like a
turbot's.' There are Hellenists for whom Chris-
tianity is exhausted by the figures of a fundamenta-
list Presbyterian, an Erastian Anglican and a 'supple
Jesuit'. There are Christians who stress the weaker
and darker sides of the classical world. But the

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