the South, intense national consciousness and national opposition to the Canaanites is common to both. This feeling grew up equally in both of them. But even in respect to this, the political separation naturally produced its consequences. Nationality is very closely tied to political unity. The abstract idea of nationality becomes illusory if there is no united state in which it appears in a concrete form. The consciousness of national oneness is enfeebled, if the political state does not coincide with the nation in a single idea. Hence we see how eager nations divided into separate political states are for a struggle for union, when once their national consciousness wakes out of sleep. On the other hand, in states formed by a union of peoples of various nationalities, we observe a certainly justifiable endeavour, on the part of the strongest and therefore ruling nationality, to inoculate the weaker ones with its own national sentiment, and thereby produce a common feeling of unity. The political separation of the Northern region from the centralised Hebrew state, produced a remarkable and very important alteration in the sense of nationality hitherto worked out in common. The political opposition between North and South encouraged also the recognition of a difference in their common genealogy. As the general Hebrew idea of nationality found nourishment in the store of legends, so also the consciousness of this secondary difference sought justification in the mythology. This sense of difference came to light more clearly in the northern Hebrews than in the southern. The former wrote the name Joseph on their banner, and derived themselves directly from that son of the common ancestor, and in opposition to the southerns laid more and more stress on this special feature of their origin; moreover, it was not so much Joseph that concerned them as Ephraim, who is named a son of Joseph. We must not forget that this name Ephraim has only a secondary origin. For when the national purpose of the story was once drafted in the mind of the people, it was developed in details in a most independent fashion. The biography of the ancestors was worked out exhaustively; that to which the existing legendary matter offered no suggestion or occasion was supplied by the restless activity of the popular sentiment. In various places in Canaan sepulchral caves had been pointed out from the earliest times—or rather caves which were employed for sepulture; for it is pretty certain that they were originally intended rather for the living than for the dead. Now could anything be simpler than to imagine the bones of ancestors to have been placed there, and to bind to these places the sacred piety which was felt by an enthusiastic nation for venerated progenitors? It is generally known that such an origin of traditions relating to graves is not uncommon in the history of civilisation and religion. Saints’ graves have as many