To say with Renan and others that the idealized likeness must from the nature of the case be the correct one, because such a person as Jesus was, is best seen at a distance and by poetic gaze, is again to beg the question. How do we know that Jesus was such a person? How do we know that the most spiritual apprehension of him, was the truest; that they judged him most justly, who judged him from the highest point; that the glorifying imaginations alone presented his full stature and proportions, that the ordinary minds immediately about him necessarily misconstrued and misrepresented him? In the order of experience, historical and biographical truth is discovered by stripping off layer after layer of exaggeration and going back to the statements of contemporaries. As a rule, figures are reduced, not enlarged, by criticism. The influence of admiration is recognized as distorting and falsifying, while exalting. The process of legend-making begins immediately, goes on rapidly and with accelerating speed, and must be liberally allowed for by the seeker after truth. In scores of instances the historical individual turns out to be very much smaller than he was painted by his terrified or loving worshippers. In no single case has it been established that he was greater, or as great. It is no doubt, conceivable that such a case should occur, but it never has occurred, in known instances, and cannot be presumed to have occurred in any particular instance. The presumptions are against the correctness of the glorified image. The disposition to exaggerate is so much stronger than the disposition to underrate, that even really great men are placed higher than they belong oftener than lower. The historical method works backwards. Knowledge shrinks the man. Eminent examples that jump to recollection instantly confirm this view. The case of Mahomet is in point. Here, the critical procedure was twofold; first to rescue a figure from the depths of infamy and then to recover the same figure from the cloudland of fancy. Under the pressure of christian hate the fame of Mahomet sank to the lowest point. He was impostor, liar, cheat, name for all shamefulness. From this muck heap he has been plucked by valiant hands, and placed on the list of heroes. Now another process is beginning, to find precisely what kind of hero he was; and it is safe to say that under this process the dimensions of the hero shrink. The arabian estimate of the prophet will not bear close examination. The glamor of pious enthusiasm being dispelled, the traits of nationality show themselves; the ecstasy is seen to be complicated with epilepsy; the revelations partake of the general oriental character; the truths are the cardinal truths of the semitic religions; the personal qualities are of the same cast that distinguishes the arabian mind. The detestation and the homage are both unjustifiable.