As myths lose their might and their influence when discovered to be baseless, the power of supernatural Christianity will doubtless pass away, but the effect of the revolution must not be exaggerated, although it cannot here be fully discussed. If the pictures which have filled for so long the horizon of the Future must vanish, no hideous blank can rightly be maintained in their place. We should clearly distinguish between what we know and know not, but as carefully abstain from characterising that which we know not as if it were really known to us. That mysterious Unknown or Unknowable is no cruel darkness, but simply an impenetrable distance into which we are impotent to glance, but which excludes no legitimate speculation and forbids no reasonable hope.
[ENDNOTES]
[1:1] Originally published in the Fortnightly Review, January 1, 1875.
[4:1] On the Canon, p. 65.
[4:2] Ibid. p. 61, note 2.
[4:3] At the end of this note Dr. Westcott adds, "Indeed, from the similar mode of introducing the story of the vine, which is afterwards referred to Papias, it is reasonable to conjecture that this interpretation is one from Papias' Exposition."
[4:4] Reliq. Sacrae, i. p. 10 f.
[4:5] Lehre Pers. Christ, i. p. 217 f., Anm. 56, p. 218, Anm, 62.
[5:1] _Theol. Jahrb. _1845, p. 593, Anm. 2; cf. 1847, p. 160, Anm. 1.
[5:2] Synops. Evang., Proleg. xxxi.