From the first appearance of Joseph Smith's account of the origin of the Book of Mormon, there was felt the need of a counter theory of origin. The first to respond to this "felt" need was Alexander Campbell, founder of the "Disciples" or "Christian" Church. He assigned the book's origin straight to Joseph Smith, whom he accused of conscious fraud in "foisting it upon the public as a revelation." This in 1831. Then came the Spaulding theory of origin by Hurlburt, Howe, _et al.,_ 1834; for which Mr. Campbell repudiated his first theory of the Joseph Smith authorship. In 1899 Lily Dougall in "The Mormon Prophet," advanced her theory of the Prophet's "self delusion," "by the automatic freaks of a vigorous but undisciplined brain." This was supplemented in 1902 by Mr. I. Woodbridge Riley's theory of "pure hallucination, honestly mistaken for inspired vision; with partly conscious and partly unconscious hypnotic powers over others." [B] [Footnote B: Both the Dougall and Riley theories are considered in Vol. I. of _Defense of the Faith and the Saints_, pp. 42-62; and the older theories of the origin in _New Witness for God_, Vol. III, chas. xliv, xlv.] Mr. Schroeder, however, will have none of these later theories; and although the finding of the Rev. Mr. Spauldings' "Manuscript Found," by Professor Fairchild of Oberlin College, in 1884--details of which are given in the debate gave a serious set back to that theory, Mr. Schroeder deems the Spaulding theory of the origin of the Book of Mormon the only tenable counter theory advanced, and assuming the existence of another Spaulding manuscript _not found,_ and not likely to be found, he proceeds with his argument; to which I make answer, with what success the reader must judge. B. H. ROBERTS. Salt Lake City, October, 1911. THE ORIGIN OF THE BOOK OF MORMON. BY THEODORE SCHROEDER I. Every complete, critical discussion of the divine origin of the Book of Mormon naturally divides itself into three parts:--first, an examination as to the sufficiency of the evidence adduced in support of its miraculous and divine origin; second, an examination of the internal evidences of its origin, [1] such as its verbiage, its alleged history, chronology, archaeology, etc.; third, an accounting for its existence by purely human agency and upon a rational basis, remembering that Joseph Smith, the nominal founder and first prophet of Mormonism, was probably too ignorant to have produced the whole volume unaided. Under the last head, two theories have been advocated by non-Mormons. By one of these, conscious fraud has been imputed to Smith, and by the other, psychic mysteries have been explored [2] in an effort to supplant the conscious fraud by an unconscious self-deception. [Footnote 1: Valuable contributions to this study are Lamb's "Golden Bible" and a pamphlet by Lamoni Call classifying two thousand corrections in the inspired grammar of the first edition of the Book of Mormon.]