A far more hopeful and scientific process would have been to begin upon ground where dogmatic questions do not enter, or enter only in a remote degree, and where there is a sufficient number of solid ascertainable facts to go upon, and then to work the way steadily and cautiously upwards to higher generalisations.
It will have been seen in the course of the present enquiry how many side questions need to be determined.

It would be well if monographs were written upon all the quotations from the Old Testament in the Christian literature of the first two centuries, modelled upon Credner's investigations into the quotations in Justin.

Before this is done there should be a new and revised edition of Holmes' and Parsons' Septuagint [Endnote 359:1].
Everything short of this would be inadequate, because we need to know not only the best text, but every text that has definite historical attestation.

In this way it would be possible to arrive at a tolerably exact, instead of a merely approximate, deduction as to the habit of quotation generally, which would supply a firmer basis for inference in regard to the New Testament than that which has been assumed here.

At the same time monographs should be written in English, besides those already existing in German, upon the date or position of the writers whose works come under review.