our minds follow the doctrines of Christianity, even as our bodies
perform their functions--in complete unconsciousness. At the same time
we possess a very considerable knowledge of the development of
Christianity, and this we owe largely to the help of analogy.
Especially instructive is the comparison between Christianity and
Buddhism. No less interesting are the discoveries to be attained by an
inquiry into the development of Muhammedanism: here we can see the
growth of tradition proceeding in the full light of historical
criticism. We see the plain man, Muhammed, expressly declaring in the
Qoran that he cannot perform miracles, yet gradually becoming a
miracle worker and indeed the greatest of his class: he professes to
be nothing more than a mortal man: he becomes the chief mediator
between man and God. The scanty memorials of the man become voluminous
biographies of the saint and increase from generation to generation.

Yet more remarkable is the fact that his utterances, his _logia_, if
we may use the term, some few of which are certainly genuine, increase
from year to year and form a large collection which is critically
sifted and expounded. The aspirations of mankind attribute to him such
words of the New Testament and of Greek philosophers as were
especially popular or seemed worthy of Muhammed; the teaching also of
the new ecclesiastical schools was invariably expressed in the form of
proverbial utterances attributed to Muhammed, and these are now
without exception regarded as authentic by the modern Moslem. In this
way opinions often contradictory are covered by Muhummed's authority.

The traditions concerning Jesus offer an analogy. Our Gospels, for
instance, relate the beautiful story of the plucking of the ears of
corn on the Sabbath, with its famous moral application, "The Sabbath
was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath." A Christian papyrus