This is a general human tendency which we should not and ought not oppose; unfortunately, there are leading Jews who deem it their duty to resist the forces of progress and to display medievalism at the expense of our people and its prestige, and to the exclusion of all modern and intellectual forces. This resistance we find represented in two schools of thought, in the school of _old-fashioned Reform_ and in that of the _semi-nationalistic spiritualism_. The representatives of the one school argue that we are only a spiritual people and that we are violating the spirit of Judaism if we strive to become a secular people. The others do not go so far, but they also maintain that Jewish nationalism is above all spiritual in nature and that, if Jewish nationalism has a duty to perform, this duty consists in establishing a Jewish _spiritual_ centre in Palestine. Both schools of thought may be characterized as utterly reactionary, because they imply that we should stand still, where humanity stood two or three hundred years ago; that we should continue to submit to the law of the book instead of submitting to the law of life, and that we should continue to live as a spiritual people and give spiritualism the first place, while the basis of present day civilization is secular in nature. With regard to the philosophy of Judaism as represented by old-fashioned Reform, it suffices to remember that every people on earth had a period in its history when it considered itself a spiritual people. And to the present day every civilized people firmly and sincerely believes that it has a special mission to perform. The author of "Oraisons Funèbres" formulated such a spiritual mission for the French, Fichte did it for the Germans, and Katkov for the Russians. But neither the French nor the Germans nor the Russian people clung to their mission-theory. While appreciating these spiritual values, they have outgrown spiritualism as the all embracing guide of the nation's life and have settled down to work out their salvation in a very prosaic and profane way. Either the Jewish people are subject to the laws of historic progress, and then we have to keep pace with that historical progress, or else we miraculously form an exception to the rule and laws of history--we are an island in the ocean of life--and then we ought to be today what we were two, three, five or twelve hundred years ago.