l law and normal
standard of correct speaking. Now, in what way does such a rule
interfere with the ordinary prejudice on this subject? The popular error
is that, in pronunciation, as in other things, there is an abstract
right and a wrong. The difficulty, it is supposed, lies in ascertaining
this right and wrong. But by collation of arguments, by learned
investigation, and interchange of _pros_ and _cons_, it is fancied that
ultimately the exact truth of each separate case might be extracted.
Now, in that preconception lies the capital blunder incident to the
question. There _is_ no right, there _is_ no wrong, except what the
prevailing usage creates. The usage, the existing custom, _that_ is the
law: and from that law there is no appeal whatever, nor demur that is
sustainable for a moment.

FOOTNOTES:

[52] Amongst the Spaniards there _is_.

_XV. THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES COULD HAVE BEEN WRITTEN IN NO MODERN ERA._

Now, observe what I am going to prove. First A, and as a stepping-stone
to something (B) which is to follow: It is, that the Jewish Scriptures
could not have been composed in any modern aera. I am earnest in drawing
your attention to the particular point which I have before me, because
one of the enormous faults pervading all argumentative books, so that
rarely indeed do you find an exception, is that, in all the dust and
cloud of contest and of objects, the reader never knows what is the
immediate object before the writer and himself, nor if he were told
would he understand in what relation it stood to the main object of
contest--the main question at stake. Recollect, therefore, that what I
want is to show that these elder Jewish Scriptures must have existed in
very ancient days--how ancient? for ancient is an ambiguous word--could
not have been written as a memorial of tradition within a century or two
of our aera. To suppose, even for the sake of answering, the case of a
forgery, is too gross and shocking: though a very common practice
amongst writers miscalled religious, but in fact radically, incurably
unspiritual. This might be shown to be abominable even in an
intellectual sense; because no adequate, no rational purpose could be
answered by such a labour. The sole conceivable case would be, that from
the eldest days the Jews had been governed by all the Mosaic
institutions as we now have them, but that the mere copying, the mere
registration on tablets of parchment, wood, leather, brass, had