All this would go to show that the psychological continuity of the Hebrew literary mind and the true development of the Jewish mind can best be safeguarded through the medium of Hebrew. Hebrew is to the Jews and to the literature of the Jewish people more than a language. It replaces the many elements required for the sound development of a national literature which we have not, such as a country, local traditions, a national political organization, and so on. As long as Hebrew is the medium of literary expression among the Jews, Jewish literature deserves the name of a national literature and is a national literature. If, however, the Jewish mind does not express itself any more through the medium of Hebrew, the productions of this mind do not solely belong to us and are not part and parcel of our national property. They belong to the others as well as to us and probably more to them. Herein lies the importance of Hebrew for the development of Judaism and the Jewish mind. ARE THE JEWS A COMMERCIAL PEOPLE? The reputation of the Jews for being a business people has done them more harm than good, and has, in fact, retarded their emancipation in many countries. But nowhere has this reputation done them so much harm as in Russia. Even the Russian liberals, who are not anti-Semitic, seem to believe that the Jews, if emancipated, would ruin the Russian peasantry and completely monopolize Russian commerce. They are therefore not eager to take up the cause of the Jews, though they may be liberal in every other respect. The Russian and Roumanian anti-Semites, however, base their theories of the need for oppressing the Jews on the belief that the Jews are too shrewd in business and that they will exploit the Russians and Roumanians if they are given freedom to move about and to utilize all their commercial energy and intelligence. This view is not restricted to those countries alone. We find traces of it even in America. Has this belief any foundation in fact or is it only a myth? The question is interesting enough to be discussed. There are two methods of considering this question, the _historic_ and the _pragmatic_. Have the Jews always been a business people? Are they today a business people? Instead of answering these questions in the affirmative or in the negative, we think it wiser to lay the facts before the public and to let it answer the two questions.