Dr. Hort’s system, therefore, is entirely destitute of historical foundation(299). He does not so much as make a show of pretending to it: but then he would persuade us, as he has persuaded himself, that its substantial truth is proved by results; and for results of themselves to establish so very much, they must needs be unequivocal, and admit of no logical escape from the conclusions they lead up to. But is this really the case? “Two Members of the New Testament Company” of Revisers, in a temperate and very able pamphlet, have answered in the affirmative, and have assigned, after Dr. Hort, but with greater precision than he, _three_ reasons “for the belief that the Syrian text is posterior in origin to those which he calls Western, Alexandrian, and Neutral” (The Revisers and the Greek text of the N. T., p. 25). Granting for our present purpose the reality of this Syrian text, of whose independent existence we have no direct proof whatever, let us see what the three reasons will amount to. (α) “The first reason appears to us almost sufficient to settle the question by itself. It is founded on the observation ... that the Syrian text presents numerous instances of readings which, according to all textual probability, must be considered to be combinations of early readings still extant.”... “The reader will find in Dr. Hort’s own pages abundant illustration of the fact in eight examples rigorously analyzed, which seem to supply a proof, as positive as the subject admits, that Syrian readings are posterior both to Western readings, and to other readings which may be properly described as Neutral” (_ibid._ pp. 25-6). But the misfortune is that the subject does not admit of positive proof; that what appears to one scholar “textual probability,” appears to another a mere begging of the whole question. These eight examples have been re-analyzed by Canon Cook (Revised Version, pp. 205-18), and just before him by the _Quarterly Reviewer_ (Revision Revised, pp. 258-65), writers not destitute either of learning or of natural acuteness, who would fain lead us to draw directly opposite inferences from Dr. Hort’s. We will take but one specimen, the eighth and last, to make our meaning as clear as possible. “This simple instance,” says Dr. Hort complacently, “needs no explanation” (Hort, p. 104). Luke xxiv. 53. καὶ ἦσαν διαπαντὸς ἐν τῷ ἱερῷ, αἰνοῦντες καὶ εὐλογοῦντες τὸν Θεόν. Thus it stands in the Received text with AC**FHKMSUVXΓΔΛΠ, all cursives, even those most esteemed by Westcott and Hort, with _c_ _f_ _g_, the Vulgate, Peshitto and Harkleian Syriac, the Armenian, and Ethiopic virtually (εὐλογοῦντες καὶ αἰνοῦντες τὸν Θεόν). This is called the Syrian reading. The two so-termed Pre-Syrian forms are, om. αἰνοῦντες καὶ אBCL*, Bohairic (Hort), Jerusalem Syriac. This is the Neutral and Alexandrian text. om. καὶ εὐλογοῦντες D, _a_ _b_ _e_ _ff_ _l_, _gat._ _bodl._, Bohairic (Tischendorf). This is the Western text.