THE QUESTION OF TIME. 33 



.always been much doubt and difficulty, and 

 that similar data taken from the three 

 existing versions of the Old Testament, — 

 the Hebrew, the Samaritan, and the Septua- 

 gint, — give results which vary from each 

 other, not by years, or even by tens of 

 years, but by many centuries. Where differ- 

 ences exist of such magnitude, no confidence 

 can be felt in any of the results. It seems 

 more than questionable how far the history 

 of Man given in the Old Testament either is, 

 or was intended to be, a complete history, or 

 more than the history of typical men and of 

 typical generations. At all events, it would 

 be worse than idle to deny that this ques- 

 tion of Time comes naturally and necessarily 

 within the field of scientific investigation, in 



D 



