For (=1=),--If any book were even _suspected_ to be Divine, the manner of interpreting it would of course be different. Not that the "basis" of such Interpretation would therefore cease to be "scientific!" Take the only known instance of such a Book. The Bible has been suspected (!) for 1800 years to be inspired. How has it fared with the Bible? The Science of Biblical Interpretation is one of the noblest and best understood in the world. It has been professed and practised in every country of Christendom. The great Masters of this Science have been such men as Hilary of Poictiers, Basil and the two Gregories in Asia Minor, Epiphanius in Cyprus, Ambrose at Milan, John Chrysostom at Antioch, Jerome in Palestine, Augustine in Africa, Athanasius and Cyril at Alexandria. The names descend in an unbroken stream from the first four centuries of our æra down to the age of Andrewes, and Bull, and Pearson, and Mill. These men all interpret Scripture in one and the same way. Their principles are the same throughout. They were all Professors of _the same Sacred Science_. But (=2=),--If a book even _professes_ to have a hidden meaning, it is interpreted by a special set of canons. Thus Dante's great poem[146] may not be read as Hume's History of England is read.--To proceed, however. (vii) Sophocles is perhaps the most subtle of the ancient Greek poets. "Several schools of critics have commented on his works. To the Englishman he has presented one meaning, to the Frenchman another, to the German a third; the interpretations have also differed with the philosophical systems which the interpreters espoused. To one the same words have appeared to bear a moral, to another a symbolical meaning; a third is determined wholly by the authority of old commentators; while there is a disposition to condemn the scholar who seeks to interpret Sophocles from himself only and with reference to the ideas and beliefs of the age in which he lived. And the error of such an one is attributed not only to some intellectual but even to a moral obliquity (!) which prevents his seeing the true meaning." (p. 336.) It has fared with Sophocles therefore, (according to Mr. Jowett,) _in all respects as it has fared with the Bible_. "It would be tedious," (he justly remarks,) "to follow the absurdity which has been supposed into details. By such methods," Sophocles or Plato might "be made to mean anything." (p. 336.) But who does not perceive that the obvious way to escape from the supposed difficulty, is to remember that _neither Sophocles nor Plato was inspired_!... Mr. Jowett's difficulty is occasioned by his assumption that _the Bible stands on the same level as Plato and Sophocles_.