allegorieo-metaphysico-mystico-logico-transendental, 'formulae' of the
most obscure and contentious philosophy ever devised by man; and lastly,
that all this superfluous trouble is to give us, after all, only the
mysteries of a most enigmatical philosophy: For of Hegel, in particular,
we think it may with truth be said that the reader is seldom fortunate
enough to know that he knows his meaning, or even to know that Hegel
knew his own.
____

* Daub naively enough declares that, if you except all that relates
to angels, demons, and miracle, there is scarcely any mythology in the
Gospel.' An exception which reminds one of the Irish prelate who, on
reading 'Gulliver's Travels,' remarked that there were some things in
that book which he could not think true.
____

Whether, then, we regard the original compilers of the evangelic records
as inventing all that Paulus or Strauss rejects, or sincerely believing
their own delusions, or that their statements have been artfully
corrupted or unconsciously disguised, till Christ and his Apostles are
as effectually transformed and travestied as these dreamers are pleased
to imagine, with what consistency can we believe any thing certain
amidst so many acknowledged fictions inseparably incorporated with them?
If A has told B truth once and falsehood fifty times, (wittingly or
unwittingly,) what can induce B to believe that he has any reason to
believe A in that only time in which he does believe him, unless he
knows the same truth by evidence quite independent of A, and for
which he is not indebted to him at all? Should we not, then, at once
acknowledge the futility of attempting to educe any certain historic
fact, however meagre, or any doctrine, whether intelligible or obscure,