Page:An analysis of religious belief (1877).djvu/380

 Are proceedings or actions which shock the improved morality of a later age spoken of with approbation in the canonical books? Some evasion must be discovered which will reconcile ethics with belief. Are doctrines which the religion of a later age rejects plainly enunciated, or statements of facts, which later investigation has shown to be impossible, unequivocally made? The inconvenient passages must be shown to bear another construction. Are there portions whose character appears too trivial or too mundane to be consistent with the dignity of works given for the instruction of mankind? These portions must be shown to possess a mystical significance; a spirit hidden beneath the letter; profound instruction veiled under ordinary phrases. Are the dogmas cherished as of supreme importance by subsequent generations unhappily not to be found in the text of Revelation? These dogmas must be read out of them by putting a strain upon words which apparently refer to some other subject. Perhaps, if they are not contained in them totidem verbis, they may be totidem syllabis: or if not even totidem syllabis, at least totidem literis. And the absence of a letter (like the k in shoulder-knots) can always be got over somehow. Lastly, are there palpable contradictions? At whatever cost they must be explained away, for Holy Writ, being inspired, can never contradict itself.

Let us consider a few of the most striking examples of these methods of treatment. China, usually so matter of fact, has manifested in this field a subtlety of interpretation not altogether unworthy of the more mystical India. The Ch'un Ts'ëw, one of the books of the Chinese Canon, is a historical compilation attributed to Confucius himself, and is therefore of more than ordinary authority even for a Sacred Book. Concerning one of the years of which it contains a record, the following statements are made:—

"In the ninth month, on Kang-seuk, the first day of the moon, the sun was eclipsed.

"In winter, in the tenth month, on Kang-shin, the first day of the moon, the sun was eclipsed" (C. C., vol. v. p. 489.—Ch'un Ts'ëw, b. 9, ch. xxi. p. 5, 6).

Two eclipses in such close proximity were of course an impossibility. Chinese scholars were fully aware of this, and