The song of Moses _implies no miracle at all_: it is merely high poetry.

A later prosaic age took the hyperbolic phrases of v.

8 literally, and so generated the comment of v.

19, and a still later time expanded this into the elaborate 14th chapter.
Other proofs crowded upon me, that cannot here be enlarged upon.
Granting then (for argument) that the four first books of the Pentateuch are a compilation, made long after the event, I tried for a while to support the very arbitrary opinion, that Deuteronomy (all but its last chapter) which seemed to be a more homogeneous composition, was alone and really the production of Moses.

This however needed some definite proof: for if tradition was not sufficient to guarantee the whole Pentateuch, it could not guarantee to me Deuteronomy alone.