were the central doctrines thus testified to anything short of
miraculous, no one would doubt. But we are not competent judges _a
priori_ of what a revelation should be. If our agnosticism be _pure_, we
have no right to pre-judge the case on _prima facie_ grounds.


One of the strongest pieces of objective evidence in favour of
Christianity is not sufficiently enforced by apologists. Indeed, I am
not aware that I have ever seen it mentioned. It is the absence from the
biography of Christ of any doctrines which the subsequent growth of
human knowledge--whether in natural science, ethics, political economy,
or elsewhere--has had to discount. This negative argument is really
almost as strong as is the positive one from what Christ did teach. For
when we consider what a large number of sayings are recorded of--or at
least attributed to--Him, it becomes most remarkable that in literal
truth there is no reason why any of His words should ever pass away in
the sense of becoming obsolete. 'Not even now could it be easy,' says
John Stuart Mill, 'even for an unbeliever, to find a better translation
of the rule of virtue from the abstract into the concrete, than to
endeavour so to live that Christ would approve our life[63].' Contrast
Jesus Christ in this respect with other thinkers of like antiquity. Even
Plato, who, though some 400 years B.C. in point of time, was greatly in
advance of Him in respect of philosophic thought--not only because
Athens then presented the extraordinary phenomenon which it did of
genius in all directions never since equalled, but also because he,
following Socrates, was, so to speak, the greatest representative of
human reason in the direction of spirituality--even Plato, I say, is
nowhere in this respect as compared with Christ. Read the dialogues, and
see how enormous is the contrast with the Gospels in respect of errors
of all kinds--reaching even to absurdity in respect of reason, and to