'How will you possibly account for such a reading as the present,' (say they,) 'if it be not authentic ?' Or they say nothing, but leave it to be inferred that the reading they adopt,--in spite of its intrinsic improbability, in spite also of the slender amount of evidence on which it rests,--must needs be accepted as true.

They lose sight of the correlative difficulty:--How comes it to pass that the rest of the copies read the place otherwise?
On all such occasions it is impossible to overestimate the importance of detecting the particular cause which has brought about, or which at least will fully account for, this depravation.

When this has been done, it is hardly too much to say that a case presents itself like as when a pasteboard mask has been torn away, and the ghost is discovered with a broad grin on his face behind it.
The discussion on which I now enter is then on the Causes of the various Corruptions of the Text.

[The reader shall be shewn with illustrations to what particular source they are to be severally ascribed.

When representative passages have been thus labelled, and the causes are seen in operation, he will be able to pierce the mystery, and all the better to winnow the evil from among the good.] Sec.