the Bible, there exists also a voluminous mass
of Hebrew writings which are not included in the sacred canon. These
writings are of supreme importance and value, and the selections which we
have made from them in the present volume give a good idea of their
interest, beauty, and subtlety of thought.

From the very beginning of their history the Hebrews were a deeply poetic
race. They were fully alive to the beauties of external nature, and no
national poetry contains more vivid descriptions of the sea, sky, and the
panorama of forest, stream and mountain, peopled by the varied activities
of animated nature. The songs of Zion glow with poetic enthusiasm, but
their principal characteristic is their intense earnestness. They are no
idle lays of love and wine or warlike triumph. They depict the joy of
existence as dependent upon the smile and favor of Jehovah, and all the
happiness, plenty, victory and success of life are attributed, without
hesitation, to nothing else but "the loving-kindness of the Lord." Yet
this religious fervor becomes the basis of sublimity, pathos, and
picturesqueness, such as can seldom be approached even by the finest
productions of the Attic muse.

But the Hebrews were also philosophers, and if they never attained to what
we may call the _nettete et clarte_ of the Greek metaphysician, they
excelled all other thinkers in the boldness and profound spirituality of
their philosophical mysticism. In proof of this assertion we may point to
that body of writings known as the Kabbalah.

The word "Kabbalah" means "doctrine received by oral tradition," and is
applied to these remains to distinguish them from the canonical Hebrew
Scriptures, which were written by "the Finger of Jehovah." Hebrew
speculation attempts in the Kabbalah to give a philosophical or
theosophistic basis to Hebrew belief, while at the same time it
supplements the doctrines of the Old Testament. For instance, it is a
disputed point whether the immortality of the soul is taught in the Hebrew
canon, but in the Kabbalah it is taken for granted, and a complete and
consistent psychology is propounded, in which is included the Oriental
theory of metempsychosis. This account of the human soul, as distinct from
the human body, treats of the origin and eternal destiny of man's immortal
part. On the other hand God and Nature, and the connection between the
Creator and the creation, are most exactly treated of in detail. God is
the _En-Soph_, th