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a serious caution against the assumed security of the position of the Higher Critics. In dealing with the position of the Higher Criticism the paper left little more to be said in the present state of our knowledge, but the speaker desired to offer a few critical remarks on the principles from the point of view of a student of Science. The "assured results" of the critics were often assured only by a certain consensus of opinion among a certain set of scholars. But scholarship can be, and often is, unscientific. In the last resort it turns often upon negative evidence, and involves the fallacy of measuring what may be by what the learned know or think that they know. The method is unscientific, because it proceeds merely by deductive reasoning from certain accepted conclusions. Geometry is a deductive science (as John Stuart Mill pointed out years ago), but its deductions are based on axioms which are truths attested by universal experience. The logical vice of the Higher Criticism consists in assuming that certain generalizations have the value of truths universal; and, what is worse, the critics often fail to perceive that, while their "assumed results are based on such assumptions, derived to a large extent from negative reasoning, the advance of knowledge, from the sidelights of such sciences as archæology and anthropology, is constantly smashing such empirically constructed theories by the solid logic of facts newly brought to light.

In science, real workers have learned to be cautious in basing conclusions on such empirical generalizations, for example, as Lyell's Uniformitarian dogma in geology. Increased light thrown upon the infinitely complex operation of natural law, with the advance of scientific discovery, leads to the result that old working-hypotheses are frequently breaking down, as inadequate to the enlarged intellectual perspective of the serious student. The pity is that the lack of such a spirit of willingness to unlearn in the light of fuller knowledge, and the lack too often of a spirit of reverence in the intellectual attitude towards those things which, in the spiritual sphere, have come to us attested by the traditional experience of a hundred generations of mankind, as they cluster round the feet of the God-Man, can so warp the judgment as to bring the critic sometimes perilously near sinning against intellectual veracity, when in the face of new evidence, he refuses to see the necessity for reconsidering his "assured results" in the light of the bare logic of facts. How some of these "assured results" fare when a more scientific spirit

and method of inquiry are brought to bear upon them, was very well illustrated in the paper on the Samaritan Pentateuch read by Dr. Munro a few weeks ago before the Victoria Institute.

Mr. T. B. BISHOP expressed the hope that the Council could see their way to send a copy of this paper to the students of the country.

Mr. LESLIE asked what was the lecturer's own opinion in regard to the attack on the Massoretic text; and the Rev. J. J. B. COLES asked his opinion on Dr. Ginsburg's views as to the text of the Old Testament.

Professor LANGHORNE ORCHARD, M.A., B.Sc., said: This age in which we live has good points-every age has its good points-but it may go down to history as an age of degradation-degradation in politics, degradation in science, degradation in Scripture-criticism. The present paper has directed our attention to this last. Our hearty thanks are tendered to the able author, the eminent divine, the competent and careful scholar, for bringing before us this interesting review, succinct yet comprehensive, of the present position and principles of the criticism of the Old Testament.

The position is (I think) clearly indicated in pages 237 and 241. The neo-criticism of to-day is on the horns of a dilemma. We are reminded of the fact (well-known to scholars) that the Hebrews, like other Orientals, were most conservative of their Scripture text and its account of the development of their religion. The critics must either accept the fact of this conservatism or they must deny it. If they accept it, their assault upon the Old Testament collapsescadit questio. If they deny it, they are convicted of most unscholarly carelessness, as is shown in p. 237, in building theories upon the basis of a Massoretic Hebrew text without first critically investigating the trustworthiness of that text. They are thus in either case impaled by the dilemma.

The learned author has pointed out that among the critics themselves exist discrepancies quite as pronounced as any which they profess to discover in Holy Writ. This is a hopeful sign, for when those who appear to aim at depriving us of our inheritance fall out among themselves, probability is strengthened that we shall continue to hold our own. That this is a matter of vital importance to us is evident, for the Scriptures by the Spirit of Truth supply us with our spiritual food. Scripture criticism is not necessarily bad.

There are critics and critics. We shall agree with the author when, referring to the neglect to examine into the correctness of the Hebrew text, shown by one class of critics, he says:-"I cannot but say it seems to me an omission which goes very far to discredit the method and spirit of the whole critical process. It looks like an eminent example of the formation of a hasty hypothesis on an incomplete observation of the facts, and a tardy and reluctant attention to the new facts when it could no longer be avoided. It would seem that the critics have been as sure of their theories as the Ptolemaic astronomers were of their cycles and epicycles,' and did not think it worth while to look more closely into any circumstances alleged to be inconsistent with them."

In a house built upon such foundations we refuse to make our intellectual home.

The Rev. H. J. R. MARSTON wrote:

I am sorry indeed that I cannot be at the Victoria Institute meeting to-morrow to hear the Dean.

I have just read the uncorrected proof of his paper.

I beg you to read my thanks as a tribute to the erudition and lucidity of his treatment of a very interesting and rather difficult

matter.

My own reading of the Septuagint has more than once suggested to me that arguments based on the names of God in the Greek text must lead to different conclusions from the use in the Authorized Version, which I take to follow the Hebrew.

The most potent fact of all alleged by the Dean is no doubt that at the end of his paper, namely, that we cannot believe that the Israelite nation has been altogether duped by literary forgers, who long before the theory of religious evolution was known, reconstructed the Old Testament in a sense favourable to that theory.

Mr. JOHN SCHWARTZ, Jun., wrote:

Our author's rebuke of the naïve confidence with which matters not capable of definite proof, and therefore only pious opinions, are held, is well merited by the scholars to whom he refers. It is a weakness of human nature which they share with the strictly orthodox who are still more dogmatic on more doubtful

matters.

AUTHOR'S REPLY.

The DEAN said in substance: As to the Masoretic text, enough has been established to show that the critics have been rash in their use of it. The matter requires much further investigation, and this, happily, is being vigorously carried forward in Germany. I hope I shall not be regarded as an opponent of criticism, only of wrong criticism. Much criticism is faulty in head, not in heart.

I am obliged to Dr. Thirtle for his very kind remarks. Our best friends to-day are the Germans themselves. The old Tübingen theory, originally opposed by Lightfoot and Westcott, was long ago demolished in Germany itself, and a sound and conservative criticism of the New Testament has been established by Zahn and his colleagues. I have a great admiration of German scholars, but I think they are rather rash. They are most honest and bold and they will ultimately get right. Theories will often "work" for a time, but often new facts arise showing their inapplicability; the theory has then to be given up, and some more successful one put in its place. This was the case with the Ptolemaic system for years; it prevailed until the Reformation, even Lord Bacon was misled by it; but it worked, eclipses were predicted by it, though it was wrong all the time. So German critical theories work for a time, perhaps 50 years, until further inquiry produces facts throwing new light on the problem.

A good example of this was the change of view as to the early use of writing in Old Testament times. When Bishop Harold Browne wrote his Introduction to the Pentateuch in the Speaker's Commentary, he had to argue the question whether writing was in use in the time of Moses. But every scholar has now in his possession an elaborate code of laws, comparable in some respects to those of the Pentateuch, which was formulated and inscribed on stone by a contemporary of Abraham.

In conclusion, the Dean thanked the meeting for their attention and the kind vote of thanks which they had passed.

47TH ORDINARY GENERAL MEETING,

HELD (BY KIND PERMISSION) IN THE ROOMS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF ARTS, ON MONDAY,

JUNE 16TH, 1913, AT 4.30 P.M.

THE RIGHT HON. THE EARL OF HALSBURY, F.R.S., PRESIDENT OF THE INSTITUTE, OCCUPIED THE CHAIR.

The Minutes of the preceding meeting were read and signed and the Secretary announced the elections of Captain M. McNeile, R.N., Mr. Harry G. Munt, and Mr. T. Isaac Tambyah as Associates.

The PRESIDENT then called upon Mr. Arthur W. Sutton to deliver a lecture on his journey from Suez to Sinai.

MY

ANNUAL ADDRESS.

FROM SUEZ TO SINAI.*

(WITH 100 LANTERN ILLUSTRATIONS.)

By ARTHUR W. SUTTON, ESQ., J.P., F.L.S.,
Honorary Treasurer of the Institute.

Y camel ride from Suez to Mount Sinai came within the dates March 7th to 23rd, 1912. I was accompanied by my friend Dr. Mackinnon, of Damascus, who was also with me when visiting Petra in Arabia in 1907. As this latter tour had thrown so much light upon the later wanderings of the Israelites, I had a particular desire to make the desert journey to Sinai itself, and thus follow the earlier journeying of the people as they left Egypt under the leadership of Moses.

In the month of February, through my friend Mr. Bolland of the Sudan Agency War Office, Cairo, I met in that city Naum

The address was based upon a Journal of Travel, which has been issued in book form, sumptuously illustrated, by Messrs. J. and J. Bennett, Ltd., The Century Press, 8, Henrietta Street, W.C., with the title "My Camel Ride from Suez to Mount Sinai." From that volume a number of illustrations are here reproduced, by permission of the publishers.

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