mology of this sort
were extremely ingenious guesses, to be admitted in so far as they do
not conflict with facts, and till the next guess comes, but nothing
more. Lo! they are quoted as if they were on a par with "two and two
make four," or the law of Excluded Middle. We may not take Moses and
the prophets without proof, but Curtius and Professor Max Mueller may
speak, and we must but hear. And later, when Mr Arnold is trying to
cope with Descartes, he flies for refuge to "the roots _as_, _bhu_,
and _sta_."

One is tempted rather to laugh at this; but on some sides it is very
serious. That no God of any religion can be more of a mere hypothesis
than _as_, _bhu_, and _sta_, never seems to have occurred to
Mr Arnold for one moment, nor that he was cutting the throat of his
own argument. We must not, however, fall into his own mistake and
quadruplicate to his duply. It may be sufficient to say that the long
defence of the Fourth Gospel which this book contains is one of the
oddest things in all literature. What, on Mr Arnold's principles, it
matters whether the Fourth Gospel was written in the first century,
the fourth, or the fourteenth, it is impossible for the poor plain
mind to see. He will not have it as revelation, and as anything else
its date is quite immaterial.

The fact is that this severe censor of "learned pseudo--science mixed
with popular legend," as he terms theology, appears to have no idea of
the value of evidence whatever. The traditional history of the Bible
is not even to be considered; but a conjectural reconstruction of it
by a Dutch critic, without in the older cases one jot or tittle of
evidence outside the covers of the Bible itself, deserves every
respect, if not reverent acceptance _en bloc_. Miracles are
fictions, and the scenes in the garden of Eden and at the Sepulchre
never happened; but _as_, _bhu_, and _sta_ are very solemn
facts, and you can find out all about the Divinity, because the word
Deus means (not "has been guessed to mean," but _means_)
"Shining." That Shakespeare knew everything is much more certain than
that miracles do not happen; and he certainly knew Mr Arnold's case if
not Mr Arnold, when he introduced a certain main episode in _A
Midsummer Night's Dream_. To frown on Oberon and caress Bottom is
venial compared with the dismissal of the Bible as popular legend, and
the implicit belief in _as_, _bhu_, and _sta_.

A wilfully hostile historian of Mr Arnold could not dwel