The proof of this statement, if proof be needed, is that legalism, when its master principle has been fully grasped and fearlessly applied, takes the form of Pharisaism, and that it is possible for the Pharisee to "count himself to have apprehended," to congratulate himself on his spiritual achievement, to believe, in all seriousness, that he has closed his account with God.
Pharisaism is at once the logical consummation and the _reductio ad absurdum_ of legalism.

It is to the genius of Israel that we owe that practical interpretation of the fundamental principle of supernaturalism, which was embodied in the doctrine of salvation through obedience to the letter of a Law.

And it is to the genius of Israel that we owe that rigorously logical interpretation of the _axiomata media_ of legalism, which issued in due season in Pharisaism.

The world owes much to the courage and sincerity of Israel,--to his unique force of character, to his fanatical earnestness, to his relentless tenacity of purpose.

In particular, it owes a debt which it can never liquidate to what was at once the cause and the result of his over-seriousness,--to his lack of any sense of humour,--a negative quality which allowed his practical logic to run its course without let or hindrance, and prevented the "brakes" of common-sense from acting when he found himself, in his very zeal for the Law, descending an inclined plane into an unfathomable abyss of turpitude and folly.