And the course which the inductive process is taking supplies one of the chief 'grounds of hope' to those who wish to hold that middle position of which I have been speaking.

The extreme theories which from time to time have been advanced have not been able to hold their ground.

No doubt they may have done the good that extreme theories usually do, in bringing out either positively or negatively one side or another of the truth; but in themselves they have been rejected as at once inadequate and unreal solutions of the facts.

First we had the Rationalism (properly so called) of Paulus, then the Mythical hypothesis of Strauss, and after that the 'Tendenz-kritik' of Baur.

But what candid person does not feel that each and all of these contained exaggerations more incredible than the difficulties which they sought to remove?
There has been on each of the points raised a more or less definite ebb in the tide.