secondly, the degree of authority attributed to them. Practically
this second enquiry must be very subordinate to the first, because
the data are much fewer; but it too shall be dealt with,
cursorily, as the occasion arises, and we shall be in a position
to speak upon it definitely before we conclude.

It will be convenient to follow the example that is set us in
'Supernatural Religion,' and to take the first three, or Synoptic,
Gospels separately from the fourth.

* * * * *

At the outset the question will occur to us, On what principle is
the enquiry to be conducted? What sort of rule or standard are we
to assume? In order to prove either the existence or the authority
of the Gospels, it is necessary that we should examine the
quotations from them, or what are alleged to be quotations from
them, in the early writers. Now these quotations are notoriously
lax. It will be necessary then to have some means of judging, what
degree and kind of laxity is admissible; what does, and what does
not, prevent the reference of a quotation to a given source.

The author of 'Supernatural Religion,' indeed, has not felt the
necessity for this preliminary step. He has taken up, as it were,
at haphazard, the first standard that came to his hand; and, not
unnaturally, this is found to be very much the standard of the
present literary age, when both the mechanical and psychological
conditions are quite different from those that prevailed at the
beginning of the Christian era. He has thus been led to make a
number of assertions which will require a great deal of