es Origines de l'Histoire, passim, but
especially chaps. ii, iv, v, vi; see also Goldziher.

If, then, modern science in general has acted powerfully to dissolve
away the theories and dogmas of the older theologic interpretation, it
has also been active in a reconstruction and recrystallization of
truth; and very powerful in this reconstruction have been the evolution
doctrines which have grown out of the thought and work of men like
Darwin and Spencer.

In the light thus obtained the sacred text has been transformed: out
of the old chaos has come order; out of the old welter of hopelessly
conflicting statements in religion and morals has come, in obedience
to this new conception of development, the idea of a sacred literature
which mirrors the most striking evolution of morals and religion in the
history of our race. Of all the sacred writings of the world, it shows
us our own as the most beautiful and the most precious; exhibiting to us
the most complete religious development to which humanity has attained,
and holding before us the loftiest ideals which our race has known.
Thus it is that, with the keys furnished by this new race of biblical
scholars, the way has been opened to treasures of thought which have
been inaccessible to theologians for two thousand years.

As to the Divine Power in the universe: these interpreters have shown
how, beginning with the tribal god of the Hebrews--one among many
jealous, fitful, unseen, local sovereigns of Asia Minor--the higher
races have been borne on to the idea of the just Ruler of the whole
earth, as revealed by the later and greater prophets of Israel, and
finally to the belief in the Universal Father, as best revealed in
the New Testament. As to man: beginning with men after Jehovah's own
heart--cruel, treacherous, revengeful--we are borne on to an ideal of
men who do right for right's sake; who search and speak the truth for
truth's sake; who love others as themselves. As to the world at large:
the races dominant in religion and morals have been lifted from the idea
of a "chosen people" stimulated and abetted by their tribal god in every
sort of cruelty and injustice, to the conception of a vast community in
which the fatherhood of God overarches all, and the brotherhood of man
permeates all.

Thus, at last, out of the old conception of our Bible as a collection
of oracles--a mass of entangling utterances, fruitful in wrangling
interpretations, which have given to t