belief—many gathered themselves around this banner and became one force—a negative sect. At first this sect, as long as it persecuted and was persecuted, was full of life and energy, full of burning hatred for the Talmud and infinite love for the “remnant”—the Bible. But when it cut itself off from the bulk of the Jewish nation, and found in its own renunciation insufficient material for either hatred or love, it ceased to be active, and gradually fell into a state of putrefaction.
But it seldoms happens that there is an exclusively negative movement, such as Karaism. Most people are unable to eradicate any spiritual tendency from their minds, even when it has lost its meaning. For though they may not be interested in it directly, the “spiritual interests” that are intertwined with it are still dear to them—whether they are the outcome of the original tendency or merely an adjunct to it. They shrink from the void which the destruction of this tendency must inevitably bring with it. These moderate adherents of the negative remain undecided long enough to allow of the introduction of a new positive principle, which fills up the void they dreaded and forms a new central point for all those feelings, inclinations, etc., which were formerly bound up with the old theory that they now wish to abolish. As soon as the new positive theory makes its appearance, and its early followers become an object of persecution to the adherents of the old, who discover a “hidden negation” in the new, adherents of the open negation gain fresh courage, seeing that they have now acquired a firm support. They emerge from their hiding place and come to the rescue of the persecuted, accepting the new positive theory and all that depends upon it with unbounded devotion and enthusiasm, without criticism or deliberation; for it is not the theory itself which is their first consideration, but the possibility of the negative which may be contained in it. On this account, whilst
they analyze the old theory more and more minutely, so as to search out its most trivial defects and deficiencies: in the same way they endeavor to overlook the faults of the new, and praise it even more immoderately than did its original adherents. To the latter it was merely a part, oran extension of the old, but these others have nothing else and therefore necessarily see in it the whole. The original adherents of the new theory certainly protest at first against the alliance thus forced upon them. Owing, however, to the persecution which both suffer equally at the hands of the adherents of the old theory, they are compelled to hold together, and they gradually become accustomed to this association. At last they actually form a union with one common theory, composed equally of positive and negative elements. One party accepts the positive on account of the negative, and the other the negative for the sake of the positive.
Such a struggle lasts for many years, sometimes even for many generations. As a rule, the new idea at first gains the victory. For, on the one hand, the negative spirit, once awakened, is with difficulty repressed. On the other hand, the strength of the new positive tendency exceeds that of the old because it is a product of the present, and, as such, better adapted to the spirit of the age than the old, which is the product of a former generation. But the moment the adherents of the new are sure of ultimate victory, they cease to concentrate all their powers on the struggle with the old; many of them begin to examine their own theory with the criticism they had hitherto reserved for the old. It is only natural, that they should now discover in it all kinds of unsound elements, the removal of which may seem desirable. Gradually there are found among the rejected elements of the old parts that were thoroughly sound and vigorous, but which the negative theory had uselessly destroyed in its hasty condemnation of the old. By degrees they become convinced that the substitution of the