CHAPTER I. INTENTION OF THE PRESENT ARGUMENT. The credit of ancient literature, the certainty of history, and the truth of religion, are all involved in the secure transmission of ancient books to modern times. Many of the facts connected with the history of this transmission are to be found, more or less distinctly mentioned, in every work in which the claims of the Holy Scriptures are advocated. But these facts are open to much misapprehension when they are brought together to subserve the purposes of a single argument. It is the intention of this volume therefore to lay them before general readers, as they stand apart from controversy, and as if no interests more important than those of literature were implicated in the result of the statements we have to make. Nothing can be more equitable than that the genuineness and authenticity of the Jewish and Christian Scriptures should be judged of by the rules that are applied to all other ancient books; nor is anything more likely to produce a firm and intelligent conviction of the validity of the claims advanced for the Holy Scriptures, than a clear understanding of the relative value of the evidence which supports them. To furnish the means therefore of instituting a comparison, so just in itself, and so necessary to a fair examination of the most important of all questions, is the design of these pages. As this volume makes no pretension to communicate information to those who are already conversant with matters of antiquity, literary or historical, whatever might seem recondite, or what is still involved in controversy, has been avoided. Nor will these pages be encumbered with numerous references, which, though easily amassed, would increase the size of the volume without being serviceable to the class of readers for whom the author now writes. No facts are adduced which may not readily be substantiated by any one who has access to a library of moderate extent. But a few works, not often met with in private collections, are named at the foot of the page where special information has been derived from them. The principal facts of ancient history, and the authenticity of the works from which chiefly our knowledge of antiquity is derived, are now freely admitted, after a few exceptive instances have been set off, which are unproved, or doubtful.