fitable enquiry if the author had
asked himself, What is Revelation? The time has come when this
should be asked and an attempt to obtain a more scientific
definition should be made. The comparative study of religions has
gone far enough to admit of a comparison between the Ethnic
religions and that which had its birth in Palestine--the religion
of the Jews and Christians. Obviously, at the first blush, there
is a difference: and that difference constitutes what we mean by
Revelation. Let us have this as yet very imperfectly known
quantity scientifically ascertained, without any attempt either to
minimise or to exaggerate. I mean, let the field which Mr. Matthew
Arnold has lately been traversing with much of his usual insight
but in a light and popular manner, be seriously mapped out and
explored. Pioneers have been at work, such as Dr. Kuenen, but not
perhaps quite without a bias: let the same enquiry be taken up so
widely as that the effects of bias may be eliminated; and instead
of at once accepting the first crude results, let us wait until
they are matured by time. This would be really fruitful and
productive, and a positive addition to knowledge; but reasoning
such as that in 'Supernatural Religion' is vitiated at the outset,
because it starts with the assumption that we know perfectly well
the meaning of a term of which our actual conception is vague and
indeterminate in the extreme--Divine Revelation. [Endnote 10:1]

With these reservations as to the main drift and bearing of the
argument, we may however meet the author of 'Supernatural Religion'
on his own ground. It is a part of the question--though a more
subordinate part apparently than he seems to suppose--to decide
whether miracles did or did not really happen. Even of this part
too it is but quite a minor subdivision that is included in the
two volumes of his work that have hitherto appeared. In the first
place, merely as a matter of historical attestation, the Gospels
are not the strongest evidence for the Christian miracles. Only
one of the four, in its present shape, is claimed as the work of
an Apostle, and of that the genuineness is disputed. The Acts of
the Apostles stand upon very much the same footing with the Synoptic
Gospels, and of this book we are promised a further examination.
But we possess at least some undoubted writings of one who was
himself a chief actor in the events which followed immediately
upon those recorded in the Gospels; and