54 



PIONEERS OF EVOLUTION. 



Exodus, showing that, here also, the mythical ele- 

 ment is dominant; the existence of Abraham him- 

 self dissolving in the solution of the " higher criti- 

 cism." As to the Pentateuch, the larger number of 

 scholars place its composition, in the form in which 

 we have it older documents being blended therein 

 about the sixth and fifth centuries B. c. 



Jesus spoke of the earth as if it were flat, and 

 the most important among the heavenly bodies. 

 Knowledge of the active speculations that went on 

 centuries before his time on the Ionian seaboard; 

 prevision of what secrets men would wrest from the 

 stars centuries hence of neither did he dream. That 

 Homer and Virgil had sung; that Plato had dis- 

 coursed; that Buddha had founded a religion with 

 which his, when Western activity met Eastern pas- 

 sivity, would vainly compete; these, and aught else 

 that had moved the great world without, were un- 

 known to the Syrian teacher. 



Jesus believed in an arch-fiend, who was per- 

 mitted by Omnipotence, the Omnipotence against 

 which he had rebelled, to set loose countless num- 

 bers of evil spirits to work havoc on men and ani- 

 mals. Jesus also believed in a hell of eternal tor- 

 ment for the wicked; and in a heaven of unending 

 happiness for the good. There is no surer index of 

 the intellectual stage of any people than the degree 

 in which belief in the supernatural, and, especially 

 in the activity of supernatural agents, rules their lives. 

 The lower we descend, the more detailed and famil- 



