th; the whole kingdom
was in a commotion, indeed, but a commotion of hospitable festivity,
in which it shook hands with all the world!

This is a piece of positive evidence which ought to settle the whole
matter. In short, the external and internal evidence alike warrants
us in rejecting this absurd story as utterly incredible.'"

"Upon my word," said young Robinson, "you have said more than I thought
you could have said on such a theme. I really almost doubt whether
Dr. Dickkopf has not the best of it, and whether we ought not to
agree that the 'Papal Aggression' is a sheer delusion."

"O," said Harrington, "I have mot given you half the arguments by
which an historian, eighteen hundred years hence, might prove that
what has actually occurred never could have occurred, and that what
has not occurred must, in the very nature of things, have occurred,
by a necessity alike political, historical, ethical, logical, and
psychological. And no doubt Dr. Dickkopf is right on the principles
on which acute critics may argue; that is, the assumption that certain
probabilities will justify conclusions on such subjects. One might
naturally have supposed the Pope to have been more politic than to
take this step,--the French more consistent than to suppress the
Republican movement of Italy,--the English less moderate in
expressing their indignation,--and certainly that there would
never have been such an array of odd names to garnish one brief document.
And now, I bethink me, it is far from impossible that some Dr.
Dickkopf may even apply to Strauss's Leben Jesu, and Dr. Whately's
'Historic Doubts' similar reasoning, to prove that the first was
elaborate irony, and the second a sincere expression of scepticism."

"How can that be?"

"Thus: he will prove that the age was remarkably fond of such species
of ironical literature. As Strauss, in his preface, has expressly
admitted (though we all know what he means) that Christianity is true,
and has suggested an unimaginably absurd hypothesis as to its true
import, founded on the principles of the Hegelian philosophy, the
learned Dr. Dickkopf will say, that no one who so spoke of Christianity
could have intended seriously to discredit it, and yet certainly could
not possibly believe the absurd theory of it concocted out of German
philosophy; ergo, that we must regard the whole book as a piece of
prolonged irony,--a little too characteristic of German pedantry, it
is true, but sincerel