probable; even though there may still remain a few passages respecting which we cannot help framing a shrewd suspicion that the original reading differed from any form in which they are now presented to us(245). In no wise less dangerous than bare conjecture destitute of external evidence, is the device of Lachmann for unsettling by means of emendation (_emendando_), without reference to the balance of conflicting testimony, the very text he had previously fixed by revision (_recensendo_) through the means of critical authorities: in fact the earlier process is but so much trouble misemployed, if its results are liable to be put aside by abstract judgement or individual prejudices. Not that the most sober and cautious critic would disparage the fair use of internal evidence, or withhold their proper influence from those reasonable considerations which in practice cannot, and in speculation should not, be shut out from every subject on which the mind seeks to form an intelligent opinion. Whether we will or not, we unconsciously and almost instinctively adopt that one of two opposite statements, _in themselves pretty equally attested to_, which we judge the better suited to recognized phenomena, and to the common course of things. I know of no person who has affected to construct a text of the N. T. on diplomatic grounds exclusively, without paying some regard to the character of the sense produced; nor, were the experiment tried, would any one find it easy to dispense with discretion and the dictates of good sense: nature would prove too strong for the dogmas of a wayward theory. “It is difficult not to indulge in _subjectiveness_, at least in some measure,” writes Dr. Tregelles (Account of Printed Text, p. 109): and, thus qualified, we may add that it is one of those difficulties a sane man would not wish to overcome.