cal cause sufficient to
explain the remainder. The idea is regarded as prior to the fact: the need
of a deliverer, he pretends, created the idea of a saviour: the
misinterpretation of old prophecy presented conditions which in the
popular mind must be fulfilled by the Messiah. The gospel history is
regarded as the attempt of the idea to realise itself in fact.

The fundamental fallacy of the inquiry is apparent from one consideration.
Legends are possible in any age; myths, strictly so called, only in the
earliest ages of a nation. Comparative philology has lately shown that
mythology is connected with the formation of language, and restricted to
an early period of the world's history.(816) But the encouragement offered
to the mythic interpretation by Hegel's philosophy will be apparent. The
mythus embodying itself in the facts of the gospel was the miniature of
the process of universal nature. Everywhere the idea strives for
realisation.

The scheme of Strauss formed the link between philosophy and criticism.
Philosophy had explained the doctrines of Christianity, but not the facts
of Christian history. Criticism had explained the facts by historical
examination, but not by philosophy. Strauss attempted, for the first time,
to present the philosophical explanation of facts as well as doctrines. He
explained them, neither by charge of fraud, nor by historical causes, but
by reference to the operation of a psychological law, the same which the
Hegelian philosophy regarded as exemplified universally. Early Christian
fiction was resolved into a psychological law, regulated by a definite law
of suggestion, of which plausible instances were traced. The gospel
history was regarded to be partly a creation out of nothing, partly an
adaptation of real facts to preconceived ideas. This same philosophy,
which thus contributed to the critical or destructive side of the theory,
also furnished the reconstructive. The facts in Christianity were
temporary, the ideas eternal. Christ was the type of humanity. (36) His
life and death and resurrection were the symbol of the life, death, and
resurrection, of humanity. The former were unimportant, the latter
eternal. An exoteric religion for the people might exhibit the one: the
esoteric for the philosopher might retain the other.(817)

This is Strauss's system and position. The book itself comprises three
parts;--first, an historic introduction, in which the history of previous
criticism