1. The first is an _artificial method_ of expounding the Holy Scriptures, which distinguishes itself from the _natural_ method by the fact, that, while the latter rests on a thorough _knowledge of the language_ and the true _spirit of the legislator_ in view of the circumstances of the time, as these are known from history, the former has been devised rather for the sake of the laws passed to meet existing emergencies. The rabbis look upon the Holy Scriptures, not only as the source of the fundamental laws of Moses, and of those which are deducible from these by a rational method, but also as a vehicle of the laws to be drawn up by themselves according to the wants of the time. The artificial method here, like every other of the same kind, is merely a means of bringing the new laws at least into an _external connection_ with the old, in order that they may thereby find a better introduction among the people, be reduced to principles, divided into classes, and therefore more easily impressed on the memory. No reasonable rabbi will hold, that the laws, which are referred in this way to passages of the Holy Scriptures, render the true sense of these passages; but if questioned on this point, he will reply, "These laws are necessities of the time, and are referred to those passages merely for this reason." 2. The second source of the abuse of Rabbinism is to be found in the manners and customs of other nations, in whose neighbourhood the Jews have lived, or among whom they have been gradually scattered since the fall of the Jewish state. These manners and customs they were obliged to adopt in order to avoid becoming objects of abhorrence. Of this sort are the laws, _not to uncover the head_ (at least in holy places and at holy ceremonies), _to wash the hands_ (before meals and prayers), to fast the whole day till sunset, to say a number of daily prayers, to make pilgrimages, to walk round the altar, etc.,--all manifestly of _Arabian_ origin. From hatred also towards those nations that destroyed the Jewish state, and afterwards made the Jews undergo manifold oppressions, they have adopted various customs, and among others many religious usages which are opposite to those of the _Greeks_ and _Romans_. In all this the rabbis had the Mosaic laws themselves for a model, these being sometimes in agreement, sometimes in hostility, with the Egyptian laws which lie at their root, as has been shown in the most thorough manner by the celebrated Maimonides in his work, _Moreh Nebhochim_.