36 PROLOGUE I 



unhistorical, how is the historical accuracy of 

 the remainder to be guaranteed ? What more 

 intrinsic claim has the story of the Exodus than 

 that of the Deluge, to belief? If God did not 

 walk in the Garden of Eden, how can we be 

 assured that he spoke from Sinai ? 



In some other of the following essays (IX., X., 

 XL, XII., XIV., XV.) I have endeavoured to 

 show that sober and well-founded physical and 

 literary criticism plays no less havoc with the 

 doctrine that the canonical scriptures of the New 

 Testament "declare incontrovertibly the actual 

 historical truth in all records." We are told that 

 the Gospels contain a true revelation of the 

 spiritual world a proposition which, in one sense 

 of the word "spiritual," I should not think it 

 necessary to dispute. But, when it is taken to 

 signify that everything we are told about the 

 world of spirits in these books is infallibly true ; 

 that we are bound to accept the demonology 

 which constitutes an inseparable part of their 

 teaching ; and to profess belief in a Supernatural- 

 ism as gross as that of any primitive people it is 

 at any rate permissible to ask why ? Science 

 may be unable to define the limits of possibility, 

 but it cannot escape from the moral obligation 

 to weigh the evidence in favour of any alleged 

 wonderful occurrence ; and I have endeavoured to 

 show that the evidence for the Gadarene miracle 



