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neither self-evident, nor capable of deductive proof from such 
as are ; unites facts by theories, the truth of which it is im- 
possible to verify; supplements all defects of evidence by an 
unlimited licence of conjecture ; and as all historical evidence 
is probable, and not demonstrative, he marshals one side of 
the evidence, and carefully omits all notice of the other. In 
adopting this mode of procedure, he assumes the functions of 
judge, jury, plaintiff, counsel, and even that of defendant. If 
he can succeed in getting these offices all united in his single 
person, it is a hard matter if he cannot make out a case. We 
might do so against any fact which ever occurred on similar 
principles. Two thousand years hence it will be possible to 
show, on the principles in question, that the ministry of Lord 
Derby had nothing to do with carrying the Reform Bill of 
1867 ; and that all the reports in Hansard, which state that 
they were active agents in it, are of a purely mythic origin. 
I cannot think it fair to bring a charge against rational in- 
quiry into the character and evidences of the Christian revela- 
tion on the ground, that a large body of critics, professing to 
use reason as their instrument, assert that the Gospels are 
mythic, and the character of the Divine Author of Christianity 
unhistorical. It does not follow, that rational inquiry is not 
the only true way of ascertaining their true nature, or that it 
necessarily leads to such a conclusion. The critics in question 
profess to found their views on the principles of pure reason. 
But the question is. Is this profession borne out by fact ? Is 
the unlimited use of theorizing and conjecture a rational pro- 
cess ? Are their abstract principles founded on sufficiently 
extensive inductions, and do not most of them involve a plain 
petitio principii ? Does the existence of discrepancies,— put it, 
if you like, contradictions, — in historical accounts, discredit the 
immense mass of positive evidence of their truth ? If the 
Gospels had been free from a miraculous narrative, we should 
never have heard of the speculations of the Tubingen school. 
Grant the possibility of miracles, and even these critics 
must admit that the Gospels stand on a foundation of evidence 
such as no other events in ancient history can pretend to. 
Two well-known works of this description are the lives of 
Jesus, by Renan and Strauss. It is not too much to say of 
these that they are novels, and not histories. Their positive 
portions are the results of conjecture and historical divination 
in its most arbitrary form. Their negative portions are founded 
on the principles I have described, and none other. 
It is high time that we should recognize the entire rotten- 
ness of the principle of conjecture as applied to the recon- 
struction of history. I have recently read through Bunsen's 
