crystallized a belief for which wonder and speculation had prepared the way. “So it must have been!” men could well have argued. On this supposition the belief antedated the tradition. But that beliefs have created traditions again and again is enough to show that it could have been so here. Nor is the time‐element the insuperable difficulty it has been supposed to be. The idea that a myth would require fifty years to grow is absurd.(107) Provided the parents of Jesus were already dead, the myth could have sprung up new born. In sketching the foregoing theory our purpose is not to assert its truth, but rather to illustrate its by no means inherent improbability. It could be true; or, at any rate, this judgement might any day have to be passed upon some alternative theory, superior to any that has yet been stated. The agreement of the Virgin Birth tradition with historic fact may be the true solution of the problem, but it is not the only solution that is possible, nor can its superiority be established by the comparative method alone. We therefore work along wrong lines if we attempt to argue the historic character of the Virgin Birth tradition by dwelling upon the incongruities and contradictions of alternative theories. The baleful attractiveness of such a method ought strenuously to be resisted. It may yield a few showy triumphs, but few, if any, solid results. Of course, if we have first satisfied ourselves that the Virgin Birth is historically true, the practice is less objectionable; but it is doubtful if even then it adds much to results otherwise obtained. To include the method in the process of proof is to build upon sand. On the other hand, this view is equally sound, if our solution of the problem is one of the alternative theories to which we have referred. We have sketched a theory which we have claimed might be true. But what more could be claimed by the comparative method? Its justification or lack of justification lies elsewhere. The possible may not be the probable, nor the probable the true. The importance of the question we have discussed in the present section is that it reveals what are the by‐paths and what is the high‐road of a true investigation. The question of alternative theories is purely secondary. The high‐road is where we left it at the end of Section II. Can the tradition, endorsed by the First and Third Evangelists, be vindicated? V. Doctrinal Considerations _The ultimate considerations which determine a true estimate of the Virgin Birth tradition are doctrinal._ It is one of the chief merits of Lobstein’s well‐known book that he so clearly recognizes this fact: “What must finally turn the scale ... are reasons of a dogmatic and religious order” (op. cit., p. 79).