(viii) Again,--"If it is not held to be a thing impossible that there should be agreement in the meaning of _Plato and Sophocles_, neither is it to be regarded as absurd, that there should be a like agreement in the interpretation of _Scripture_?" (p. 426.)--The whole force of this argument clearly consisting in the strictly equal claims of these books to Inspiration.--Elsewhere, Mr. Jowett expresses the same thing more unequivocally:--The old "explanations of Scripture," (he says,) "are no longer tenable. They belong to a way of thinking and speaking which was once diffused over the world, but has now passed away." Having quietly _assumed_ all this, the Reverend writer proceeds:--"And what we give up as a general principle, we shall find it impossible to maintain partially; _e.g._ in the types of the Mosaic Law, and the double meanings of Prophecy, at least _in any sense in which it is not equally applicable to all deep and suggestive writings_." (p. 419.) (ix) "Still one other supposition has to be introduced, which will appear, perhaps, _more extravagant than any which have preceded_. Conceive then that these modes of interpreting Sophocles (!) had existed for ages; that great institutions and interests had become interwoven with them; and in some degree even the honour of Nations and Churches;--is it too much to say that, in such a case, they would be changed with difficulty, and that they would continue to be maintained long after critics and philosophers had seen that they were indefensible?" (pp. 336-7.) I suppose we may at once allow Mr. Jowett most of what he asks. We may freely grant that if the Tragedies of Sophocles _had_ exercised the same wondrous dominion over the world which the Books of the Bible have exercised:--if Oedipus and Jocasta and Creon; if Theseus and Dejanira and Hercules; if Ajax, Ulysses and Minerva;--_had_ done for the world what Enoch and Noah;--what Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob;--what Joseph, and Joshua, and Hannah, and Samuel, and David;--what Elijah and Elisha; what Isaiah and Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel, and the rest;--what St. Peter, and St. John, and St. Paul;--what the Blessed Virgin and her name-sakes, have done:--In a word: had Homer's gods and heroes altogether changed the face of society, and revolutionized the world; _so that "great institutions and interests had become interwoven with them, and in some degree even the honour of Nations and Churches_;" (p. 336;)--if, I repeat, all this _had_ really and actually taken place;--_great_ "difficulty" would, no doubt, (as Mr. Jowett profoundly suggests,) be experienced, at the end of 2000 years, in getting rid of them. But since it unfortunately happens that _they have done nothing of the kind_, we do not seem to be called upon to follow the Regius Professor of Greek into the supposed consequences of what he admits to be an "extravagant supposition;" and which we humbly think is an excessively foolish one also.