194 R^Y. JOHN TQCKWELL, M.K.A.S.^ ON MODERN THEORIES 



The able author of the paper just read has done good service in 

 exposing, without unfairness, the nature and the method of much 

 of present "higher criticism." These critics remind us of the 

 scientists in Bacon's time, who, instead of going for their theory to 

 nature and fact, spun the theory out of their own " inner conscious- 

 ness," and then tried to make the facts suit the theory. If the facts 

 proved amenable, all was well ; if they did not fit, then " so much 

 the worse for the facts." Bacon's noble protest did away with this 

 vicious method, a method re-introduced by the "higher critics." 

 These gentlemen, themselves being witnesses, start with a pre- 

 conceived theory of evolution as one of the crutches of their system ; 

 and they find the other crutch in imagination. 



Cornill affirms that the " various stages " of the Hebrew religion 

 " are now regarded as steps in a process of organic evolution," and 

 Graf regards the "Mosaic law- giving as it now presents itself before 

 us, as the evidence and product of a gradual evolution out of a 

 fertile germ, in conformity with all nature and all analogy." Cheyne 

 (Founders of Old Testament Criticism) admits that he has " enlisted 

 the imagination in the service of history," and, with charming naivete, 

 asks, " Why should we not do so " ? and, referring to Hilkiah's 

 finding of the "Book of the Law," says "it is impossible not to 

 endeavour to fill up lacunce with the help of the imagination." 



Yet Dr. Cheyne might have reflected that what is permitted to 

 the writer of a fairy tale may be denied to the inventor of a soi-disant 

 scientific theory. Driver, writing about the earliest dates of certain 

 documents, says that certainty is unattainable, for " conclusive 

 criteria fail us and we can only argue upon grounds of probability 

 derived from our view of the progress of the art of writing," etc. 

 " Our view " being made both judge and jury, can we wonder at the 

 verdict 1 



The author gives some instances of " higher critical " carelessness. 

 Many others might be cited, e.g., Wellhausen's blunders, obviously 

 due to inattention, over the Hebrew words soleth and kemach and 

 chattath, to which attention has been drawn by Dr. Baxter (in 

 Sanctuary and Sacrifice), and the confusion by Dr. Eobertson Smith, 

 of the tent in which Moses sat to judge the people with the 

 Tabernacle of Jehovah afterwards erected. 



It is difficult to feel admiration for critics of this description. 

 Nor does it lessen the difficulty to find that in Wellhausen's 



