VII AGNOSTICISM 251 



of which history is the account, it is and has 

 been the inevitable result of the strict adherence 

 to scientific methods by historical investigators. 

 Our forefathers were quite confident about the 

 existence of Romulus and Remus, of King Arthur, 

 and of Hengist and Horsa. Most of us have 

 become agnostics in regard to the reality of these 

 worthies. It is a matter of notoriety of which 

 Mr. Harrison, who accuses us all so freely of 

 ignoring history, should not be ignorant, that the 

 critical process which has shattered the founda- 

 tions of orthodox Christian doctrine owes its 

 origin, not to the devotees of physical science, but, 

 before all, to Richard Simon, the learned French 

 Oratorian, just two hundred years ago. I cannot 

 find evidence that either Simon, or any one of the 

 great scholars and critics of the eighteenth and 

 nineteenth centuries who have continued Simon's 

 work, had any particular acquaintance with 

 physical science. I have already pointed out 

 that Hume was independent of it. And certainly 

 one of the most potent influences in the same 

 direction, upon history in the present century, that 

 of Grote, did not come from the physical side. 

 Physical science, in fact, has had nothing directly 

 to do with the criticism of the Gospels ; it is 

 wholly incompetent to furnish demonstrative 

 evidence that any statement made in these his- 

 tories is untrue. Indeed, modern physiology can 

 find parallels in nature for events of apparently 



