CRITICAL THEOLOGY 215 



of criticism applied to such works in general. The pro- 

 gress of higher criticism is sketched, and the case of 

 the Deluge dealt with in detail. Finally, the untena- 

 bility of the clerical position is commented on in strong 

 terms : — 



" It is, indeed, probable that the proportional number of 

 those who will distinctly profess their belief in the transubstantia- 

 tion of Lot's wife, and the anticipatory experience of submarine 

 navigation by Jonah : in water standing fathoms deep on the 

 side of a declivity without anything to hold it up ; and in devils 

 who enter swine — will not increase, but neither is there ground 

 for much hope that the proportion of those who cast aside these 

 fictions and adopt the consequence of that repudiation, are, 

 for some generations, likely to constitute a majority. Our age 

 is a day of compromises. The present and the near future seem 

 given over to those happily, if curiously, constituted people who 

 see as little difficulty in throwing aside any amount of post- 

 Abrahamic Scriptural narrative, as the authors of Lux Mundi 

 see in sacrificing the pre-Abrahamic stories ; and, having dis- 

 tilled away every inconvenient matter of fact in Christian history, 

 continue to pay divine honours to the residue." 



We have also for 1 890 a renewal of controversy with 

 Mr. Gladstone, who, in the autumn, wrote an article for 

 Good Words on " The . Impregnable Rock of Holy Scrip- 

 ture," in which the position taken up by Huxley the 

 previous year was attacked. The Preface (dated 

 December 4, 1893) to Vol. V. of the Collected Essays, 

 as already indicated (cf. p. 193), sets forth the circum- 

 stances which led to work in critical theology, first 

 as regards the Old Testament, then as regards the 

 New: — 



" I had set out on a journey, with no other purpose than that 

 of exploring a certain province of natural knowledge ; I strayed 

 no hair's-breadth from the course which it was my right and my 

 duty to pursue ; and yet I found that, whatever route I took, be- 



