its secret to an ingenious criticism; the chronological order in which
the fragments were composed has been discovered so as to leave little
room for doubt. Such a rearrangement is much more difficult in the
case of the Gospels, the public life of Jesus having been shorter and
less eventful than the life of the founder of Islamism. Meanwhile, the
attempt to find a guiding thread through this labyrinth ought not to
be taxed with gratuitous subtlety. There is no great abuse of
hypothesis in supposing that a founder of a new religion commences by
attaching himself to the moral aphorisms already in circulation in his
time, and to the practices which are in vogue; that, when riper, and
in full possession of his idea, he delights in a kind of calm and
poetical eloquence, remote from all controversy, sweet and free as
pure feeling; that he warms by degrees, becomes animated by
opposition, and finishes by polemics and strong invectives. Such are
the periods which may plainly be distinguished in the Koran. The order
adopted with an extremely fine tact by the synoptics, supposes an
analogous progress. If Matthew be attentively read, we shall find in
the distribution of the discourses, a gradation perfectly analogous to
that which we have just indicated. The reserved turns of expression of
which we make use in unfolding the progress of the ideas of Jesus will
also be observed. The reader may, if he likes, see in the divisions
adopted in doing this, only the indispensable breaks for the
methodical exposition of a profound, complicated thought.

[Footnote 1: _Loc. cit._]

If the love of a subject can help one to understand it, it will also,
I hope, be recognized that I have not been wanting in this condition.
To write the history of a religion, it is necessary, firstly, to have
believed it (otherwise we should not be able to understand how it has