omposed by a single man. Writing did not exist. The story had many
repetitions, contradictions, and inferiorities. Later, the
philological argument was used against it. These statements summarize
the Wolfian theory. The contrariety in dialect form was thought to be
an invulnerable argument against the unity of authorship; and for a
time the epic of the ancient world was declared to be the work of many
hands, the ballads sung by rhapsodists of many names; and the Iliad,
with its astonishing display of genius, was declared to be authorless.
Less than a century has elapsed since the theory was propounded. The
subject has received a wealth of attention and study unknown before.
Discoveries have been made in philology which have practically raised
it to the rank of a science; and to-day the atomistic theory of Wolf is
not received. Grote and Mahaffy have theories which vary markedly from
the great original; and the result of a century of investigation is,
that scholars do now generally believe that some one author, or two at
most, did give shape to the great epic of the Greek people. Wolf,
Lachmann, and Bert have shown the follies of men of genius when
pursuing a line of evidence to prove a favorite theory. Their
assumptions are often absurd, and their conclusions, once admitting
their premises, are a logical necessity. The spirit of iconoclasm
rested, not with the authority of the book, but assailed the geographic
and topographical features. Troy was declared a dream. The Trojan War
had never been. But Schliemann has proven to virtual demonstration the
existence of, not only a Troy, but the Troy about which Hector and
Achilles fought.

This iconoclasm has nowhere more fully displayed itself than in its
attitude toward the Bible. That book comes properly under the head of
literature, for the reason that the general line of attack during this
century has been made from a literary standpoint. Of course, there has
always been, whether easily discoverable or not, an undertone of
skepticism of the rank sort. Oftentimes the battle has been avowedly
against the book as a professed inspiration. Strauss and Renan made no
cloak for their deed. But in many instances the method of procedure
has been to study, as under a calcium light, the literary style, the
linguistic peculiarities, the whole work as a literary composition. In
this regard the method of criticism was such as was used in dissecting
Homer's works. Each