Q/71 





PKEFACE 



I j 



' ' ' ; t J 



FOR more than a thousand years, the great 

 majority of the most highly civilised and in- 

 structed nations in the world have confidently 

 believed and passionately maintained that certain 

 writings, which they entitle sacred, occupy 

 a unique position in literature, in that they 

 possess an authority, different in kind, and im- 

 measurably superior in weight, to that of all other 

 books. Age after age, they have held it to be an 

 indisputable truth that, whoever may be the 

 ostensible writers of the Jewish, Christian, and 

 Mahometan scriptures, God Himself is their real 

 author ; and, since their conception of the attributes 

 of the Deity excludes the possibility of error and 

 at least in relation to this particular matter of 

 wilful deception, they have drawn the logical con- 

 clusion that the denier of the accuracy of any 

 statement, the questioner of the binding force of 

 any command, to be found in these documents is 

 not merely a fool, but a blasphemer. From the 

 point of view of mere reason he grossly blunders ; 

 from that of religion he grievously sins. 



