last the proofs which have led us to reject the two Epistles to Timothy and that to Titus. The Epistles which shall serve our need in the present volume are all of indubitable authority, while the deductions we shall draw from the others are quite independent of the question whether they were or were not dictated by St. Paul. It is not necessary to revert here to the rules of criticism which have been followed in the composition of this work, and which has already been done in the introduction to the Life of Jesus. The twelve first chapters of the _Acts_ form a document analogous to the synoptical Gospels and to be treated in the same manner. This species of document, half historical and half legendary, can be accepted neither as legend nor as history; while in detail nearly everything is false, we can nevertheless exhume therefrom precious truths. A pure and literal translation of these narratives, which are often contradicted by better authenticated texts, is not history. Often in cases where we have but one text there is fear that if others existed it would be contradicted. As regards the life of Jesus, the narrative of Luke is always controlled and corrected by the two other synoptical Gospels and by the fourth. Is it not probable, I repeat, that if we had a work bearing the same relation to the _Acts_ that the synoptical Gospels do to the fourth Gospel, the book of _Acts_ would be defective in many points on which we now receive it as testimony? Entirely different rules will guide us in our third book, where we shall be in the full light of positive history, and shall possess original and sometimes autographical information. When St. Paul himself relates some episode of his life, regarding which his interest demanded no special interpretation, of course we need only insert his identical words in our work, as Tillemont does. But, when we have to do with a narrator identified with a certain system, writing in support of certain ideas, preparing his work in the vague blunt style and with the highly wrought colors peculiar to legendary lore, the duty of the critic is to free himself from the thraldom of the text and to penetrate through it to the truths which it conceals, without, however, being too confident that he has discovered that truth. To debar criticism from similar interpretations would be as unreasonable as to limit the astronomer to the visible state of the heavens. Does not astronomy, on the contrary, involve an allowance for the parallax caused by the position of the observer, and construe from apparent deceptive appearances the real condition of the starry skies?