iii, CHARACTERISTICS OF THE SEMITES.—It has been stated above that the Sem. civilization is essentially of nomadic origin. We may go further, and assert that the character of the people was vitally affected by their early habitual mode of life. Probably no race in the world’s history has had such a prolonged experience of tribalism as a preparation for its wider active career among the nations. The general sketch already given of the early history of the Semites may give some indication of the conditions of their life in those distant ages. The inland Arabs of the present day present the nearest surviving analogy, changed though the type has been from the ancient proto- type. A: better representation, though still far from adequate, is afforded by the picture which the Arabian historians and poets have drawn of the manners and pursuits of their countrymen in the centuries before Islam : the migrations of their tribes, their alliances, their feuds, their forays and raids, their revenges, their stormy passions, their loves and hates, their swift growth and de- cline, their superstitions, their monotonous activity, their impulsive energy. But the correct estimate, as nearly as it may be reached, can be gained only by the use of the imagination, trained in the in- ductions of prehistoric archeology. By a process of reduction and elimination we may arrive at an approximate view of primitive Semitic society.
We must not imagine the Semites shortly before their separation as one large community swayed by a common leader, obeying common laws, and inspired by common memories. We have rather to think of a multitude of small com- munities, some of them scarcely more than parasitic unorganized hordes, speaking various closely re- lated dialects, constantly intermingling with and modifying one another, and ranging over a vast extent of wilderness land. Hunting still engrossed the attention of many of the tribesmen, though immense herds of cattle were the property of others. They had learned something of the practical uses of metals, especially of copper and iron, besides gold, silver, and several precious stones. The various tools and weapons essential to the business of hunters and shepherds are also represented by
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words common to the several derivative languages. They were close observers of animals, wild and domesticated, and of various species of plants. They would even appear to have employed some rude form of writing, though none which was later developed into a general system. Their common vocabulary is naturally deficient in legal terms; for their only law was usage and prescrip- tion, and their only court that of the family or tribal chiefs. On the other hand, the religious habit and consciousness had found copious ex- pression.
The reciprocal antagonism of a multitude of tribes, so Jong maintained in spite of frequent alliances and absorptions, and guarded by the tribal badges of social and religious usage, had its most marked result in the permanent political character of the later Sem. communities. Mutual repulsion, even between the States most closel allied by blood or common interest, was universal, and was scarcely ever overcome, even after pro- longed forcible amalgamation. City - kingdoms became the rule in all fixed settlements—an insti- tution which was essentially tribal chiefdom made permanent and hereditary. This type of govern- ment was scarcely modified, even in the most highly organized States; there intervened no real substantial authority between the king and any of his subjects. Even Israel, which exceptionally began its settled career as a tribal confederation, reverted inevitably to the normal Sem. type of government. After the establishment of the king- dom, Israel was reduced to ‘ Ephraim,’ and Samaria became the synonym of either, while Jerusalem ere long became the virtual surrogate of Judah.
Of absolutely immeasurable importance to the world were the intellectual and moral character and temper of the ancient Semites. Long-continued intense activity, within a wide yet monotonous and secluded territory, was the habit of this unique people. Such a habit of necessity produces men eager, impulsive, and intense, but narrow and un- imaginative. Such were the prehistoric Semites, and such the Semites of history. Religious, for the most part, rather than moral ; patient, resolute, enduring, brave, serious ; faithful to friends, im- placable towards foes,—they have borne the stamp of tribalism all through their history. With little breadth of imagination, or range of invention, or intellectual or moral sympathy, they have given to literature scarcely anything dramatic or epic. But their ardour and passion, their religious and patriotic fervour, have inspired a lyrical poetry unequalled or unsurpassed. Intensely subjective, they have little spontaneous interest in experi- mental science and the pictorial arts. Incapable of wide speculation, they have had no genuine philo- sophy of their own; but, wholly practical in their views and modes of life, they have attained to the highest eminence in gnomic wisdom. Their faculty of surviving in strange conditions and surround- ings, and of arousing themselves from chronic in- activity to almost superhuman daring and enter- prise, seems to be the manifestation of a reserve power potentially acquired through ages of un- daunted persistence under hard conditions. Not looking far around them, they have at times seen all the farther beyond and above them. And when it has been given them to see straight and clear, they have beheld ‘unspeakable things, which it is not possible for a man to utter.’ But they are apt to see only one thing at a time, and so in their judgments of men and things they are exclusive, partial, and extreme. When they perceive the principal part of a thing, it is conceived of and described as standing for the whole. In their mental pictures there is but little combining of elements, or shading or perspective. In their