Page:An Essay on the Age and Antiquity of the Book of Nabathaean Agriculture.djvu/128

112 bring into my teaching. I know the difficulties which are inseparable from the chair which I have the honour to occupy. It is the privilege and the danger of Shemitic studies to touch on the most important problems in the history of the human race. Freedom of thought knows no limit; but it necessitates that mankind should have reached that degree of calm contemplation, where it is not required to recognise God in each particular order of facts, simply because He is seen in all things. Liberty, gentlemen, when thoroughly understood, allows these opposing claims to exist side by side. I hope, by your aid, that this course will be a proof of it. As I shall not introduce any dogmatism into my teaching; as I shall always confine myself to appealing to your reason, while proposing to you, what I believe to be the most probable, leaving you always the most perfect freedom of judgment, who can complain? Only those who believe they have a monopoly of truth. But such persons must renounce now their