Celts, Teutons, Slavonians, on the one hand, and, on the other hand,
of a Semitic unity and of a Mongolian unity, separated by profound
distinguishing marks from the Indo-European unity and from one
another, was slowly acquiring consistency and popularising itself.
So strong and real could the sense of sympathy or antipathy, grounded
upon real identity or diversity in race, grow in men of culture, that
we read of a genuine Teuton,--Wilhelm von Humboldt--finding, even in
the sphere of religion, that sphere where the might of Semitism has
been so overpowering, the food which most truly suited his spirit in
the productions not of the alien Semitic genius, but of the genius of
Greece or India, the Teutons born kinsfolk of the common Indo-
European family. 'Towards Semitism he felt himself,' we read, 'far
less drawn;' he had the consciousness of a certain antipathy in the
depths of his nature to this, and to its 'absorbing, tyrannous,
terrorist religion,' as to the opener, more flexible Indo-European
genius, this religion appeared. 'The mere workings of the old man in
him!' Semitism will readily reply; and though one can hardly admit
this short and easy method of settling the matter, it must be owned
that Humboldt's is an extreme case of Indo-Europeanism, useful as
letting us see what may be the power of race and primitive
constitution, but not likely, in the spiritual sphere, to have many
companion cases equalling it. Still, even in this sphere, the
tendency is in Humboldt's direction; the modern spirit tends more and
more to establish a sense of native diversity between our European
bent and the Semitic and to eliminate, even in our religion, certain
elements as purely and excessively Semitic, and therefore, in right,
not combinable with our European nature, not assimilable by it. This
tendency is now quite visible even among ourselves, and even, as I
have said, within the great sphere of the Semitic genius, the sphere
of religion; and for its justification this tendency appeals to