As the Mishnah is composed with the greatest precision, and cannot be understood without a commentary, it was natural, that in course of time doubts and disputes should arise, regarding the exposition of the Mishnah itself, as well as the mode of its application to cases which it does not sufficiently determine. All these doubts and their manifold solutions, controversies and decisions, were finally collected in the Talmud by the above-mentioned Rabina and Rabassi; and this forms the fourth epoch of Jewish legislation. The fifth epoch begins with the conclusion of the Talmud, and extends down to our time, and so on for ever (_si diis placet_) till the advent of the Messiah. Since the conclusion of the Talmud the rabbis have been by no means idle. 'Tis true, they dare not alter anything in the Mishnah or the Talmud; but they still have plenty of work to do. Their business is to explain those two works, so that they shall harmonise; and this is no small matter, for one rabbi, with a superfine dialectic, is always finding contradictions in the explanations of another. They must also disentangle, from the labyrinth of various opinions, expositions, controversies and decisions, the laws which are applicable to every case; and finally for new cases, by inferences from those already known, they must bring out new laws, hitherto left indeterminate in spite of all previous labours, and thus prepare a complete code of laws. It is thus that a religion, in its origin _natural_ and _conformable to reason_, has been abused. A Jew dare not eat or drink, lie with his wife or attend to the wants of nature, without observing an enormous number of laws. With the books on the _slaughter_ of animals alone (the condition of the knife and the examination of the entrails) a whole library could be filled, which certainly would come near to the Alexandrian in extent. And what shall I say of the enormous number of books treating of those laws which are no longer in use, such as the laws of sacrifice, of purification, etc.? The pen falls from my hand, when I remember that I and others like me were obliged to spend in this soul-killing business the best days of our lives when the powers are in their full vigour, and to sit up many a night, to try and bring out some sense where there was none, to exercise our wits in the discovery of contradictions where none were to be found, to display acuteness in removing them where they were obviously to be met, to hunt after a shadow through a long series of arguments, and to build castles in the air. The abuse of Rabbinism has, as will be seen, a twofold source.