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Fallacies of the Higher Criticism. Eut, as the higher critics contradict the testimony of all the Hebrew historic documents which profess to be early, their theory might better be called the “unhistoric view.” The high er criticism has sometimes been called the documentary hy pothesis.” But as all schools of-criticism and all doctrines of inspiration are equally hospitable to the supposition that the biblical writers may have consulted documents, and may have quoted them, the higher criticism has no special right to this title. We must fall back, therefore, upon the name “the high er criticism” as the very best at our disposal, and upon the definition of it as chiefly an inspection of literary productions in order to ascertain their dates, their authors, and their, value, as they themselves, interpreted in the light of the hypothesis of evolution, may yield the evidence. “ASSURED RESULTS” OF THE HIGHER CRITICISM. I turn now to ask what the higher critics profess to have found out by this method of study. The “assured results” on which they congratulate themselves are stated variously. In this country and England they commonly assume a form less radical than that given them in Germany, though sufficiently startling and destructive to arouse vigorous protest and a vig orous demand for the evidences, which, as we shall see, have not been produced and cannot be produced. The less startling form of the “assured results” usually announced in England and America may be owing to the brighter light of Christian ity in these countries. Yet it should be noticed that there are higher critics in this country and England who go beyond the principal German representatives of the school in their zeal ' for the dethronement of the Old Testament and the New, in so far as these holy books are presented to the world as the very Word of God, as a special revelation from heaven. The following statement from Zenos* may serve to intro duce us to the more moderate form of the “assured results ♦Page 205.
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