Of course,

can be devised for seeing the corona at any other time. without the aid of the spectroscope, the corona, as ordinarily seen during total eclipses, must be entirely invisible when the sun is shining in full splendour. No one acquainted with even the merest elements of optics could hope to see the corona with an ordinary telescope at such a time. The spectroscope, again, would not help in the slightest degree to show such a corona as was shining last July. For the power of the spectroscope to show objects which under ordinary conditions are invisible, depends on the separation of rays of certain tints from the rays of all the colours of the rainbow which make up solar light; and as the corona last July shone with all the colours of the rainbow, and not with certain special tints, the power of the spectroscope would be thrown away on a corona of that kind. All that we can ever hope to do is to discern the gaseous corona when, as in 1871, it is well developed, by spectroscopic appliances more effective for that purpose than any which have hitherto been adopted; for all which have as yet been adopted have failed.

Now, the difficulty of the problem will be recognized when we remember that the strongest tint of the corona's light-the green tint classified as 1474 Kirchhoff—has been specially but ineffectually searched for in the sun's neighbourhood with the most powerful spectroscopic appliances yet employed in the study of the coloured prominences. In other words, when the light of our own air over the region occupied by the corona has been diluted as far as possible by spectroscopic contrivances, the strongest of the special coronal tints has yet failed to show through the diluted spectrum of the sky. Again, we have even stronger evidence of the difficulty of the task in the spectroscopic observations made by Respighi during the eclipse of 1871. The instrument, or I should rather, perhaps, say the arrangement, which during mid-totality showed the green image of the corona to a height of about 280,000 miles, did not show any green ring at all at the beginning of totality. In other words, so faint is the light of the gaseous corona, even at its brightest part, close to the sun, that the faint residual atmospheric light which illuminates the sky over the eclipsed sun at the beginning of totality sufficed to obliterate this part of the coronal light.

Whether with any combination specially directed to meet the difficulties of this observation, the gaseous corona can be rendered discernible, remains to be seen. I must confess my own hopes that the problem will ever be successfully dealt with are very slight, though not absolutely evanescent. It seems to me barely possible that the problem might be successfully attacked in the following way. Using a telescope of small size, for the larger the telescope the fainter is the image (because of greater loss of light by absorption), let the image of the sun be received in a small, perfectly darkened camera attached to the eye-end of the telescope. Now if the image of the sun were

received on a smooth white surface we know that the prominences and the corona would not be visible. And again, if the part of such a surface on which the image of the sun itself fell were exactly removed, we know (the experiment has been tried by Airy) that the prominences would not be seen on the ring of white surface left after such excision still less, then, would the much fainter image of the corona be seen. But if this ring of white surface, illuminated in reality by the sky, by the ring of prominences and sierra, and by the corona, were examined through a battery of prisms (used without a slit) adjusted to any one of the known prominence tints, the ring of prominences and sierra would be seen in that special tint. If the battery of prisms were sufficiently effective, and the tint were one of the hydrogen tints-preferably perhaps the red-we might possibly be able to trace the faint image of the corona in that tint. But we should have a better chance with the green tint corresponding to the spectral line 1474 Kirchhoff. If the ring of white surface were replaced by a ring of green surface, the tint being as nearly that of 1474 Kirchhoff as possible, the chance of seeing the coronal ring in that tint would be somewhat increased; and still further, perhaps, if the field of view were examined through green glass of the same tint. It seems just possible that if prisms of triple height were used, through which the rays were carried three times, by an obvious modification. of the usual arrangement for altering the level of the rays, thus giving a power of eighteen flint-glass prisms of sixty degrees each, evidence, though slight perhaps, might be obtained of the presence of the substance which produces the green line. Thus variations in the condition of the corona might be recognized, and any law affecting such variations might be detected. I must confess, however, that a consideration of the optical relations involved in the problem leads me to regard the attempt to recognize any traces of the corona when the. sun is not eclipsed as almost hopeless.

It is clear that until some method for thus observing the corona has been devised, future eclipse observations will acquire a new interest, from the light which they may throw on the coronal variations and their possible association in some way, not as yet detected, with the sun-spot period. Even when a method has been devised for observing the gaseous corona, the corona whose light comes either directly or by reflection from solid or liquid matter will still remain undiscernible except during total eclipses of the sun. Many years, then, must pass before the relation of the corona to the prominences and the sun-spots shall be fully recognized. But there can be no question that the solution of this problem will be well worth waiting for, even though it should not lead up (as it most probably will) to the solution of the mystery of the periodic changes which affect the surface of the

sun.

RICHARD A. PROCTOR.

THE LIFE OF JESUS AND MODERN

CRITICISM.

T is often said that the school of theology which calls itself modern or critical, has begun to lay the foundations for a scientific treatment of the life of Jesus. Members of that school often boast that they have put an end to that barren negative criticism, whose final result was that we know nothing of the life of Jesus except our own ignorance. They think they have found, in a thorough and impartial investigation of historical sources, the means of separating the facts from the legends with which the picture of Jesus in the Gospels is adorned. Their conclusions are often lauded as sure acquisitions of modern science, and set forth as the true key to a better apprehension of the person of Christ, and His significance in history.

In testing the justice of this claim, we do not deny that recent researches have thrown considerable light on the history of Christ's time. The chronology has been more definitely fixed, and the scenery amidst which Jesus moved more vividly painted. Much, however, is still uncertain, and the importance of the discoveries has been vastly over-estimated. The great theological questions are untouched. Did Jesus rise above the level of humanity, and was there a miraculous element in His life? On the first point modern criticism is divided. One side holds that the person of Jesus is altogether unique, the other denies this. Strauss, the representative of the latter side, gives as the reason, that it is not in the nature of an idea to manifest itself fully in one man, and that the realization in one man of an ideal character is not compatible with the laws of human existence. On the second point, both are agreed that miracles are impossible. There can, they say, be no breach in the order of Nature, and no severance of the connection between cause and effect. It is, indeed, admitted by the first side that unique or singular effects proceeded from the unique

person of Jesus, but it is maintained that they took place under the form, and according to the laws, of natural development and human activity.

Our present inquiry is, not if either of these two views can be defended either dogmatically or philosophically, but simply to ask how the evidence of the Gospels stands in reference to them. There is no doubt that the Evangelists give a totally different idea of the person of Christ and the events of His life. The earlier Rationalism deluded itself into the belief that the words of the Gospels could be so interpreted that every trace of the supernatural would disappear. A truer exegesis has for ever banished that delusion. Modern criticism, then, before it can give us its representation of the life of Jesus, must settle a preliminary question: Under what circumstances could the supernatural views of the life and work of Jesus, by which, according to the critical school, both are completely deformed, have come into our Gospels? Strauss knew what he was doing when, in his "Life of Jesus for the People," he still maintained that all our Gospels were written at a time when many of the words of Jesus still lived in the memory, though of the history of His life only the vaguest outlines were known, because there was no testimony of eye-witnesses. It is quite evident that in such an age, to suit the dogmatic views that had arisen in the meantime, the picture of Jesus might have been so transformed as to be no longer recognized. We do not now inquire how an intelligible account can be given of the formation of these dogmatic views, if they had really no startingpoint in the historic life of Jesus. We simply affirm that from this position the attempt, such as Strauss has made, to give a "Life of Jesus in its Historic Outline," is utterly hopeless; for this reason, that it depends altogether on the good pleasure of the critic what fragments he is to gather out from the motley mosaic of legends, myths, and poetic fictions as really historical.

The great boast of the critics of the modern school is that they have got beyond the Straussian standpoint. They say that they have learned, by a more thorough investigation of the sources, to distinguish between the oldest constituent elements and the later additions. Moreover, with the help of this discrimination, they believe that they can establish historically, on the basis of the oldest authorities, the most important facts in the life of Jesus. The fourth Gospel, however, is generally given up; neither its historic character nor its apostolic origin is admitted. It is well known that Schleiermacher made this Gospel the favourite of criticism, and the chief source for the life of Jesus. For its sake the other three Gospels suffered unfair and unfavourable treatment. It is, however, clear that this Gospel not only presents the highest views of the person of Jesus, but expresses them in His discourses and His miracles. Efforts were made for a long time to conceal these facts, till at last even such a

valiant defender of the Gospel as Hase has seen that it is utterly irreconcilable with his dogmatic views, and is forced to pronounce it a mere record of John's reminiscences made by one of his scholars. The same conclusion had already been reached by Weizsäcker. But even under this theory the fourth Gospel would still be entitled to a place with the other three; while for most of the representatives of modern criticism it is only a religious romance. We pass by the question whether later researches, which push its origin further back, allow of its being thus treated, that we may follow modern criticism into that region where it thinks it can find a sure foundation for the construction of the historic facts in the life of Jesus--that is, the three Synoptical Gospels.

In this region it seems difficult indeed to get a firm footing. In the early days of the strife over the authenticity of the fourth Gospel, as it was kindled by Bretschneider's "Probabilia," it became almost a fixed rule to treat the Synoptical Gospels as a collection of traditions, which deserved little confidence because their source was uncertain. But a healthy reaction began with the school of Baur and its onesided partiality for the Synoptics against John. In the present day, however, there is scarcely a man in the whole realm of German science who is willing to accept one of these Gospels as directly Apostolic, and thereby to envelop the Johannine question in insoluble difficulties. Keil indeed, in his recent comprehensive commentary, has so accepted Matthew. But Keil's book, with its apologetic and harmonistic arts, is like a resurrection from a past age, with little or no sympathy or comprehension for living science. To reproach the critical school with having plunged the Synoptical Gospels into a labyrinth of hypotheses from which there is no escape, may be a comfortable pretext for avoiding investigations that are dangerous to one's own dogmatic system; but it is no evidence that any acquaintance has been made with these investigations. Many differences have yet indeed to be reconciled; but even the most radical criticism recognizes in our first Gospel a solid core of traditions which carry one back, more or less directly, to the Apostolic circles. And yet this view, as held for instance by Keim, still starts from the unfortunate hypothesis of Griesbach, which takes Mark's Gospel for the latest of the Synoptics, and regards it as a mere colourless epitome of the other two. It is now seen that this hypothesis proceeds from a thoroughly defective understanding of the peculiarity of this Gospel. By the Tübingen school it has again been galvanized into apparent life. This is the only error in the history of Gospel criticism which does not contain a single grain of truth, and whose only possible effect is to produce confusion and mistake.

If we abandon this hypothesis, this Gospel, so rich in details of the life and ministry of Jesus, is a mine of wealth. It is easy to understand why Strauss tried with worn-out arguments and with an almost