worth more to us than all the Prophets.

I hold a high opinion of the literary quality of some parts of the
Old Testament; but I seriously think that the loss of the first
fourteen books would be a distinct gain to the world. For the
rest, there is considerable literary and some ethical value in
Job (which is not Jewish), in Ecclesiastes (which is Pagan), in
the Song of Solomon (which is an erotic love song), and in
parts of Isaiah, Proverbs, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Amos. But I
don't think any of these books equal to Henry George's _Progress
and Poverty_, or William Morris' _News from Nowhere_. Of course,
I am not blaming Moses and the Prophets: they could only tell us
what they knew.

The Ten Commandments have been effusively praised. There is
nothing in those Commandments to restrain the sweater, the
rack-renter, the jerry-builder, the slum landlord, the usurer,
the liar, the libertine, the gambler, the drunkard, the wife-beater,
the slave-owner, the religious persecutor, the maker of wheat and
cotton rings, the fox-hunter, the bird-slayer, the ill-user of
horses and dogs and cattle. There is nothing about "cultivating
towards all beings a bounteous friendly mind," nothing about
liberty of speech and conscience, nothing about the wrong of
causing pain, nor the virtue of causing happiness; nothing against
anger or revenge, nor in favour of mercy and forgiveness. Of the
Ten Commandments, seven are designed as defences of the possessions
and prerogatives of God and the property-owner. As a moral code the
Commandments amount to very little.

Moreover, the Bible teaches erroneous theories of history, theology,