AND THE PRESENT STATE OF CRITICISM. 



275 



rely for distinguishing the sources, are simply due to the peculiar 

 character of the various subjects which are being treated. In 

 the investigation of these varying features of style, on inde- 

 pendent grounds, he was surprised to find that he had uncon- 

 sciously distinguished very nearly the precise sections which the 

 critics assign to their several "Sources," and that the character- 

 istics of these sections are thus accounted for without any 

 supposition of distinct authorship. Dr. Konig, in a recent 

 review of Dr. Kyle's former book, in the chief German critical 

 journal, though differiag [rom him, treated his work with 

 much respect, and it will be of great interest to follow the 

 discussion which must ensue on this hypothesis. 



Meanwhile an entirely new element has been brought 

 into the problem by the original and vigorous investigations 

 of Professor Naville of Geneva. M. Naville is famous for 

 his admirable work as an Egyptian archaeologist, and his dis- 

 coveries in Egypt had already thrown much light oq the narratives 

 of the Scriptures. He has been engaged in this work for at least 

 forty years, and has of course become exceptiorally familiar 

 with the circumstances of ancient life in Egypt and in the Eastern 

 countries connected with it. We owe to him, among other things, 

 the discovery of the Store City of Pithom, and the singularly 

 interesting illustration of the discovery of the Law, or of 

 Deuteronomy, under King Josiah, in the deposition in an 

 Egyptian temple of the law of that temple. But since about the 

 year 1913 he has addressed himself especially to the problem of 

 Genesis and the Text of the Old Testament, and on the latter 

 subject he delivered the Schweich Lectures ia 1915. 



The war, of course, distracted notice from such subjects, but 

 M. Navillc's work is now receiving considerable attention in France. 

 In the April number, for instance, of the well-known periodical 

 Foi et Vie, an article appears from the pen of the eminent French 

 historian M. Camille Jullian, of the Institute, the author of the 

 famous History of Gaul, headed " The historical method, d propos 

 of Moses and Genesis and the labours of M. Edouard Natalie " ; 

 and a few quotations from this Review will afford a vivid and 

 independent account of the nature of M. Naville's treatment 

 of the subject. He commences by explaining that he is in no 

 way concerned with any religious controversy. He is dealing 

 with the subject as a pure question of science, and addresses himself 

 solely to the learned world. The questions involved apply to 



T 2 



