all-important religious lesson, they sacrificed exactness of detail to this overmastering purpose. Such considerations place us in the midst of the complicated circumstances of the first ages of Christianity; and hence what is called the historical school of criticism, which, from comparison of circumstances, strives to ascertain the true bearing and historical position of each of the books.

The other principle, with its corresponding school of interpretation, namely, that addressing itself to unconscious inaccuracies, is called the mythical, of which Dr. Strauss is well known to be the foremost representative. Its aim is to show how certain narratives of the New Testament grew up silently, and, as it were, spontaneously,-sometimes without any basis of fact,-out of current opinions and prepossessions. In the earlier stages of its development the human mind, though never entirely without freedom, acts more in analogy with the unconscious processes of nature; hence the possibility of treating mythi scientifically; and it marks an important advance in our knowledge of history and of ourselves, when, recognizing the fact that all human conceptions and narratives are necessarily more or less imperfect, we begin to make those more distinctly erroneous representations of ancient tradition which are specially called "mythi" the object of our study. This is the view taken by Dr. Strauss; while availing himself of the well-ascertained results of later criticism, he adheres generally to the principle adopted as the basis of his first book, namely, that explaining the quasi-spontaneous origination of fictitious narratives from preconceived opinions and traditions. He justly remarks that we have scarcely reached the time when the full results of the specifically historical method can be popularly propounded as definitively ascertained; denying also the possibility of accurately distinguishing the limits of conscious and unconscious mis-statement, the two causes of error being generally concurrent and intimately blended with one another. But one inference he claims as absolutely certain, and at the same time of paramount immediate importance, namely, that the N. T. narratives are not strictly and properly

6

PROSPECTUS OF DR. STRAUSS'S NEW LIFE OF JESUS." historical. And this is the first lesson, unwelcome perhaps, yet absolutely necessary, which the public have to learn; they must learn to see error and imperfection in the idol superstitiously worshipped; the causes and varieties of misrepresentation may, so far as popular treatises are concerned, be reserved for after-consideration.

The present work is an advance on the former one in several other respects, which it is needless here to specify; neither is it necessary to allude more particularly to those false witnesses, who, presuming on their readers' ignorance, still venture to make the name of Strauss a mark of obloquy, and try to recommend their own misty hypotheses by disparaging the man to whose far abler efforts they in great measure owe the liberty to speak on these matters at all. The time is now past for apologising for the labours of the critic, which clear the fogs of the mental atmosphere, and only destroy what is not worth preserving. The Editors of the French translation of this work express a reasonable surprise that so many should still repudiate works of free criticism, as if such works were adverse to Christianity and Religion. They urge that belief in the miraculous is everywhere on the wane, while that in undeviating Order increases; so that the only way of really maintaining Religion is to dissociate it from the first of these, and to link it indissolubly with the second. To exhibit Christianity as it is, apart from superfluous superstitious accompaniments, in its true root and pure affinities for the soul and reason of man, is, in fact, the best service that can now be rendered to it.

The Translation has been in part seen and approved by Dr. Strauss. The work will be in two volumes 8vo, and the price for the two not exceed a guinea to subscribers. Persons willing to take copies are requested to send their names and addresses to Messrs. Williams and Norgate, Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, London, W.C., for which purpose a form is annexed.

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