I proceeded to investigate the external history of the Pentateuch, and in so doing, came to the story, how the book of the Law was _found_ in the reign of the young king Josiah, nearly at the end of the Jewish monarchy.

As I considered the narrative, my eyes were opened.

If the book had previously been the received sacred law, it could not possibly have been so lost, that its contents were unknown, and the fact of its loss forgotten: it was therefore evidently _then first compiled_, or at least then first produced and made authoritative to the nation.[6] And with this the general course of the history best agrees, and all the phenomena of the books themselves.
Many of the Scriptural facts were old to me: to the importance of the history of Josiah I had perhaps even become dim-sighted by familiarity.

Why had I not long ago seen that my conclusions ought to have been different from those of prevalent orthodoxy ?--I found that I had been cajoled by the primitive assumptions, which though not clearly _stated_, are unceremoniously _used_.

Dean Graves, for instance, always takes for granted, that, _until the contrary shall be demonstrated_, it is to be firmly believed that the Pentateuch is from the pen of Moses.