Want of capacity for true political life.[34] According to the latter writer, "the Semitic race is to be recognized almost entirely by negative characteristics; it has no mythology, no epic poetry, no science, no philosophy, no fiction, no plastic arts, no civil life; everywhere it shows absence of complexity; absence of combination; an exclusive sentiment of unity."[35] It is not very easy to reconcile these two views, and not very satisfactory to regard a race as "characterised by negatives." Agreement should consist in positive features, and these may perhaps be found, first, in strength and depth of the religious feeling, combined with firm belief in the personality of the Deity; secondly, in dogged determination and "iron fixity of purpose;" thirdly, in inventiveness and skill in the mechanical arts and other industries; fourthly, in "capacity for hard work;" and, fifthly, in a certain adaptability and pliability, suiting the race for expansion and for commerce.

All these qualities are perhaps not conspicuous in all the branches of the Semites, but the majority of them will be found united in all, and in some the combination would seem to be complete.
It is primarily on account of their language that the Phoenicians are regarded as Semites.

When there are no historical grounds for believing that a nation has laid aside its own original form of speech, and adopted an alien dialect, language, if not a certain, is at least a very strong, evidence of ethnic character.

Counter-evidence may no doubt rebut the _prima facie_ presumption; but in the case of the Phoenicians no counter-evidence is producible.

They belong to exactly that geographic zone in which Semitism has always had its chief seat; they cannot be shown to have been ever so circumstanced as to have had any inducement to change their speech; and their physical character and mental characteristics would, by themselves, be almost sufficient ground for assigning them to the type whereto their language points.
The place which the Phoenicians occupy within the Semitic group is a question considerably more difficult to determine.