sed regret that we have not grappled more
closely than we have done with Dr. Hort's theory. I have already
expressed our reasons. Our object has been to describe and establish
what we conceive to be the true principles of Sacred Textual Science. We
are concerned only in a secondary degree with opposing principles. Where
they have come in our way, we have endeavoured to remove them. But it
has not entered within our design to pursue them into their fastnesses
and domiciles. Nevertheless, in compliance with a request which is both
proper and candid, I will do what I can to examine with all the equity
that I can command an essential part of Dr. Hort's system, which appears
to exercise great influence with his followers.

Sec. 1.

CONFLATION.

Dr. Hort's theory of 'Conflation' may be discovered on pp. 93-107. The
want of an index to his Introduction, notwithstanding his ample
'Contents,' makes it difficult to collect illustrations of his meaning
from the rest of his treatise. Nevertheless, the effect of Conflation
appears to be well described in his words on p. 133:--'Now however the
three great lines were brought together, and made to contribute to a
text different from all.' In other words, by means of a combination of
the Western, Alexandrian, and 'Neutral' Texts--'the great lines of
transmission ... to all appearance exclusively divergent,'--the 'Syrian'
text was constructed in a form different from any one and all of the
other three. Not that all these three were made to contribute on every
occasion. We find (p. 93) Conflation, or Conflate Readings, introduced
as proving the 'posteriority of Syrian to Western ... and other ...
readings.' And in the analysis of eight passages, which is added, only
in one case (St. Mark viii. 26) are more than two elements represented,
and in that the third class consists of 'different conflations' of the
first and second[618].

Perhaps I may present Dr. Hort's theory under the form of a diagram:--

Western Readings. Other Readings.
| |
---------------------
|
Syrian Text.

Our theory is the converse in main features to this. We utterly
repudiate the term 'Syrian' as being a most inadequate and untrue title
for the Text adopted and maintained by the Catholic Church with all her
intelligence and learning, during nearly fifteen centuries according to
Dr. Hort's admission: and we claim from the evidence that the
Traditional Te