106 LECTURES AND ESSAYS [1868- 



limitations of those historical circumstances in which the 

 prophet was so deeply immersed, and least of all in such 

 a way as to incorporate a new development of evil, to 

 think out a new Satanic thought. 



I must add, with some hesitation, a doubt whether any 

 of the highest forms of revelation, any essentially new 

 thought, not a mere combination of old principles, could 

 occur where the personality of the prophet was not con 

 sciously at work. The laws of association are only capable 

 of rearranging representative notions (Vorstellungen) 

 already familiar to the mind. An entirely new element 

 supernaturally presented, could find no place in a whole 

 produced without conscious effort according to these laws, 

 but could only be apprehended by an effort of person 

 ality. Mere predictions of new events might be thus 

 given, for a new event does not imply a new thought. So 

 far then as prophecy means merely the applying of old 

 principles to new events, this quasi-objective or impersonal 

 prophecy might suffice ; but where a new thought had 

 to be reached, some new principle deduced from the 

 general law of Jehovah s working among men and reveal 

 ing a new part of the redemptive work here, I imagine, 

 the prophet must have felt that he was thinking out quite 

 a new thought. In the case of Moses, to whom God spake 

 face to face, this effort would be just like the effort we 

 use to follow a new thought spoken or written by another. 

 But to other prophets God spoke bekiddth, an expression 

 that can hardly mean &quot; in enigmas,&quot; but rather points to 

 the more general fact that the divine revelation was not 

 given fully and directly, but so that thought was necessary 

 to apprehend it and bring it into an articulate form. 

 We must not suppose that hidah is like a cypher which 

 only needs translation. The Hebrew enigma does not 

 contain the thought that is expressed in the answer, but 

 only hints at it and affords a direction for the thoughts 

 of the person to whom it is proposed. Analogously, 

 though not identically, the prophetic revelation, when it 



