That the case was lost was seen by the fact that Danzius felt obliged to use other missiles than arguments, and especially to call his opponents hard names.

From this period the old sacred theory as to the origin of the Hebrew points may be considered as dead and buried.
II.

THE SACRED THEORY OF LANGUAGE IN ITS SECOND FORM.
But the war was soon to be waged on a wider and far more important field.

The inspiration of the Hebrew punctuation having been given up, the great orthodox body fell back upon the remainder of the theory, and intrenched this more strongly than ever: the theory that the Hebrew language was the first of all languages--that which was spoken by the Almighty, given by him to Adam, transmitted through Noah to the world after the Deluge--and that the "confusion of tongues" was the origin of all other languages.
In giving account of this new phase of the struggle, it is well to go back a little.

From the Revival of Learning and the Reformation had come the renewed study of Hebrew in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and thus the sacred doctrine regarding the origin of the Hebrew language received additional authority.