SCIENCE & HEBREW TRADITION 185 



Tradition"), it may be well first of all to deal with 

 the introduction to this, notwithstanding it was written 

 some years subsequently, being dated October 9, 

 1893. 



The purpose of this introduction is to advance the 

 claims of the higher criticism to serious consideration, as 

 against the doctrine of biblical infallibility : — 



" It is becoming, if it has not become, impossible for men of 

 clear intellect and adequate instruction to believe, and it has 

 ceased, or is ceasing, to be possible for such men honestly to say 

 they believe, that the universe came into being in the fashion de- 

 scribed in the first chapter of Genesis ; or to accept, as a literal 

 truth, the story of the making of woman, with the account of the 

 catastrophe which followed hard upon it, in the second chapter ; 

 or to admit that the earth was repeopled with terrestrial in- 

 habitants by migration from Armenia or Kurdistan, little more 

 than 4000 years ago, which is implied in the eighth chapter ; or, 

 finally, to shape their conduct in accordance with the conviction 

 that the world is haunted by innumerable demons, who take 

 possession of men and may be driven out of them by exorcistic 

 adjurations, which pervades the Gospels. 



" Nevertheless, if there is any justification for the dogma of 

 plenary inspiration, the damnatory prodigality of even the 

 Athanasian Creed is still too sparing. ' Whosoever will be 

 saved,' must believe, not only all these things, but a great many 

 others of equal repugnancy to common sense and everyday 

 knowledge. . . . 



" For those who look upon ignorance as one of the chief 

 sources of evil ; and hold veracity, not merely in act, but in 

 thought, to be the one condition of true progress, whether moral 

 or intellectual, it is clear that the biblical idol must go the way 

 of all other idols. Of infallibility, in all shapes, lay or clerical, 

 it is needful to iterate with more than Catonic pertinacity, Delenda 

 est." 



The Preface also includes a vigorous attack upon those 

 who were responsible for the Helps to the Study of the 

 Bible appended to the Oxford Bible for Teachers (new 



