Equally exaggerated on the other side, however, is Tiele’s view (_Vergelijk. Geschied._, p. 182), treating the story of Samson as borrowed from the Canaanites. See also Duncker, _l.c._ II. 65. Footnote 633: This fact, moreover, refutes Buckle’s thesis (assuming the very opposite course of development), which makes history to be the earlier, and to be subsequently degraded to ‘a mythology full of marvels.’ This thesis has been estimated at its true value by Hermann Cohen in an article entitled _Die dichterische Phantasie und der Mechanismus des Bewusstseins_, in the _Zeitsch. für Völkerpsychologie etc._, 1869, VI. 186–193. Footnote 634: Mommsen, _l.c._ book III. chap 1. Footnote 635: Holtzmann, _Deutsche Mythologie_, p. 28. Footnote 636: Paul Gyulai, _Vörösmarty élete_ [Life of Vörösmarty], Pest 1866, p. 49 _et seq._ Footnote 637: See Excursus N. Footnote 638: _Godgeleerde Bijdragen_, 1866, p. 983 _et seq._ With him Kuenen agrees, _The Religion of Israel_, I. 311 _et seq._ Footnote 639: Like the Hungarian national hero Nicolas Toldi, who overcomes the Czech (Bohemian) hero in single combat. Footnote 640: Compare _Genesis rabbâ_, § 48. Footnote 641: See _Shâhnâmeh_ (ed. Mohl), p. 124. vv. 121–29 and pp. 139–40, etc. ----- CHAPTER VIII. _COMMENCEMENT OF MONOTHEISM AND THE DIFFERENTIATION OF THE MYTHS._ § 1. We have seen a new feeling aroused in the breast of the Hebrews, and gaining such force and intensity as to fill their souls with a new thought and impart spiritual significance and direction to their political life. In the history of the world there sometimes appear nations endowed with very small power of influencing the outside world, and whose intellectual mission is quite subjective, or, if we prefer so to call it, negative, insofar as their entire historical life is taken up by the realisation of the endeavour not to fall victims to some foreign intellect bearing down upon them from the outside, but to preserve their individual being, their peculiarity, their nationality, not merely in an ethnological but in an historical sense also.