44.6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 



XX. FROM THE DIVINE ORACLES TO THE HIGHER CRITICISM. 



Br ANDREW DICKSON WHITE, LL. D. (Yale), Ph. D. (Jena), 



FORMERLY PRESIDENT OF CORNELL UNIVERSITY. 



III. THE CONTINUED GROWTH OP SCIENTIFIC INTERPRETATION. 



THE science of biblical criticism was, as we have seen, first 

 developed mainly in Germany and Holland. Many considera- 

 tions there, as elsewhere, combined to deter men from opening 

 new paths to truth : not even in those countries were these the 

 paths to preferment ; but there at least the sturdy Teutonic love 

 of truth for truth's sake found no such obstacles as in other parts 

 of Europe. Fair investigation of biblical subjects had not there 

 been extirpated, as in Italy and Spain ; nor had it been forced into 

 channels which led nowhither, as in France and southern Ger- 

 many ; nor were men who might otherwise have pursued it 

 dazzled and drawn away from it by the multitude of splendid 

 prizes for plausibility, for sophistry, or for silence displayed be- 

 fore the ecclesiastical vision in England. In the frugal homes 

 of North German and Dutch professors and pastors high think- 

 ing on these great subjects went steadily on, and the " liberty of 

 teaching," which is the glory of the northern Continental univer- 

 sities, while it did not secure honest thinkers against vexations, 

 did at least protect them against the persecutions which, in other 

 countries, would have thwarted their studies, and starved their 

 families. 



In England the admission of the new current of thought was 

 apparently impossible. The traditional system of biblical inter- 

 pretation seemed established on British soil forever. It was knit 

 into the whole fabric of thought and observance ; it was protected 

 by the most justly esteemed hierarchy the world has ever seen ; it 

 was intrenched behind the bishops' palaces, the cathedral stalls, 

 the professors' chairs, the country parsonages all these, as a rule, 

 the seats of high endeavor and beautiful culture. The older 

 thought held a controlling voice in the senate of the nation, it was 

 dear to the hearts of all classes, it was superbly endowed, every 

 strong thinker seemed to hold a brief for it, or to be in receipt of 

 its retaining fee. 



While there was inevitably much alloy of worldly wisdom in 

 the opposition to the new current, no just thinker can deny far 

 higher motives to many, perhaps to most, of the ecclesiastics who 

 were resolute against it. The evangelical movement incarnate in 

 the Wesleys had not spent its strength ; the movement initiated 

 by Pusey, Newman, Keble, and their compeers was in full force. 



