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assume that any one of theui is the true account of it. I cannot relate a 

 more striking illustration of this than Niebuhr's theories on the Decemviral 

 legislation. What the real facts were we have no real historical evidence, 

 all knowledge of them has perished ; and I contend that it is impossible by 

 mere analogical conjectures to recreate the facts which have perished. These 

 principles are abundantly applicable to many attempts of sceptics to set 

 forth new lives of Jesus Christ. I am quite sure that if our Gospels are not 

 trustworthy, their conjecturers are much less so. If the real facts have 

 perished, as they say they have, I defy them to reconstruct a true history 

 out of a few detached hints, by the power of philosophical conjecture. 

 I am far from wishing to apply the principles of abstract or mathe- 

 matical science, to history, or its evidence ; what I wish to apply to them 

 is the common sense by which we conduct our daily lives. If the pro- 

 cesses which I would apply to history destroy any of the charms of the 

 study, I am very sorry for it, for I am intensely fond of it. But my love of 

 history prompts me to utter a warm protest against any theory which tends to 

 convert it into a novel or a fiction. I am far from wishing to reduce history 

 to a mere string of dates or events. Let the philosophic mind exert its 

 utmost powers in rearranging, and if you like, reconstructing, the past from 

 any adequate data ; but let the distinction be kept clear as to what are facts 

 and what are conjectures. I do not think that there is any real disagreement 

 between Dr. Carrey and myself respecting Ewald's history. We are indebted 

 to Ewald for showing that the Old Testament contains a mass of substantial 

 history, and that vulgar assertions that its narratives are fictions, are absurd. 

 In dealing with the princij)le of conjecture, I could not help expressing my ad- 

 miration that this great writer could have brought himself into the belief, that, 

 if the Pentateuch is a mass of fragments, it is possible now, in this nineteenth 

 century of the Christian era, and after the complete destruction of the whole 

 mass of Jewish literature so frequently aUuded to in the Old Testament, to 

 pick out each separate fragment, and confidently to assign it to its respective 

 author. This is philosophic conjecture gone mad : and it is deeply to be 

 lamented that the presence of things of this description in this great writers 

 works has a tendency to persuade his readers that many of his most 

 unquestionable facts rest on an equally sandy foundation. I am aware 

 that the subject is not without its difficulties, when we adduce the character 

 of the agent as a portion of the test of the truth of a fact. Still, when I 

 survey the range of history, and the multitudes of lying miracles which have 

 been invented, I cannot avoid taking refuge in the great principle, that what- 

 ever contradicts all our great conceptions of the character of God must be 

 regarded as incredible. My moral convictions are the firmest portions of 

 my beliefs ; and I am sure that the same fountain cannot send forth fresh 

 water and salt."' To revert to the example which I have taken. It is, in my 

 view, inconsistent with the moral character of the Creator to believe that 

 He caused a cow to bring forth a lamb under the circumstances mentioned 

 by Livy. This would cause me to reject it, despite of fifty decrees of the 

 Eomnn Ronate, while I could trust one of them for the truth of an ordinary 



