736 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Among those who have wrought most effectively to bring the 

 leaders of thought in the English-speaking nations to this higher 

 conception, Matthew Arnold should not be forgotten. By poetic 

 insight, broad scholarship, pungent statement, pithy argument, 

 and an exquisitely lucid style, he aided effectually during the lat- 

 ter half of the nineteenth century in bringing the work of spe- 

 cialists to bear upon the general development of a broader and 

 deeper view. In the light of his genius a conception of our 

 sacred books at the same time more literary as well as more sci- 

 entific has grown widely and vigorously, while the older view 

 which made of them a fetich and support for unchristian dogmas 

 has been more and more thrown into the background. The con- 

 tributions to these results by the most eminent professors at the 

 great Christian universities of the English-speaking world, Ox- 

 ford and Cambridge taking the lead, are most hopeful signs of a 

 new epoch. Very significant, also, is a change in the style of 

 argument against the scientific view. Leading supporters of the 

 older opinions see more and more clearly the worthlessness of 

 rhetoric against ascertained fact : mere dogged resistance to co- 

 gent argument evidently avails less and less, and the readiness of 

 the more prominent representatives of the older thought to con- 

 sider opposing arguments, and to acknowledge any force they 

 may have, is certainly of good omen. The concessions made in 

 Lux Mundi regarding scriptural myths and legends have been 

 already mentioned. 



Typical, also, among the evidences of a better spirit in contro- 

 versy has been the treatment of the question regarding mistaken 

 quotations from the Old Testament in the New, and especially 

 regarding quotations by Christ himself. For a time this was ap- 

 parently the most difficult of all matters dividing the two forces ; 

 but, though here and there appear champions of tradition, like 

 the Bishop of Gloucester, effectual resistance to the new view has 

 virtually ceased ; in one way or another the most conservative 

 authorities have accepted the undoubted truth revealed by a sim- 

 ple scientific method. Their arguments have indeed been varied. 

 While some have fallen back upon Le Clerc's contention that 

 " Christ did not come to teach criticism to the Jews," and others 

 upon Paley's argument that the Master shaped his statements in 

 accordance with the ideas of his time, others have taken refuge 

 in scholastic statements among them that of Irenseus regarding 

 "a quiescence of the divine word," or the somewhat startling 

 explanation by sundry recent theologians that " our Lord emptied 

 himself of his Godhead." * 



* For Matthew Arnold, see especially his Literature and Dogma and his St. Paul and 

 Protestantism. As to the quotations in the New Testament from the Old, see Toy, Quota- 



