1 Nature, March 4, 1875 p.343. Cf. EB⁹, vol. viii (1879) pp.199ff. for an account by the Rev. Ponsonby Lyons (s.v. “Encyclopaedia”) of the Encyclopaedia Britannica’s origins and history, together with a useful account of the French Encyclopédie’s tempestuous story .

2 The eighth edition had been published between 1853 and 1860: cf. J.S. Cotton’s review of EB⁹ in The Academy, vol.7 (1875) pp.275f.

3 Newth (1957) p.32. Newth describes the reluctance of old Adam Black, the firm’s founder, to embark on such a costly and ambitious project. Though Adam senior died in January, 1874, he retired in 1870, leaving the sons free to pursue their aim. The Prefatory Note to the Eleventh Edition (published by the Cambridge University Press) similarly speaks (p.x.) of its predecessor being “on a scale which Adam Black considered so hazardous that he refused to have any part in the undertaking and he accordingly advertised his retirement from the firm”.

4 We know, for example, that Huxley and Maxwell agreed to oversee the scientific side (see ch.2 above, p.24) and that the lively Kirkcaldy meeting referred to by J.F. McLennan in his letter of September, 1871, to WRS (D451) included Baynes, Huxley, Tulloch and Tait. Cf. also L. Huxley (1900) vol.i, p.449: “From the first Huxley was an active helper, both in classifying the biological subjects … and himself writing several articles, notably that on Evolution”.

5 This combined rôle paralleled that of Alexander Bain’s duties at Aberdeen University. In his Autobiography, Bain makes only two fleeting references to Baynes (Bain, pp. 247; 367) both in relation to their joint positions as external examiners for the University of London.

6 B&C (p.167) dates Smith’s admission to the Revision Committee from early 1875 but a letter (A35) from WRS to J.S. Black in November, 1874, indicates that WRS had by then already begun active work on the OT Revision: “Have been busy sending notes to Westminster – a heavy job”. WRS took the place of Patrick Fairbairn, Principal of the Free Church College in Glasgow, who died in 1874.

7 Cf. the biographical sketch by Lewis Campbell in Baynes’ Shakespeare Studies (1896) and also the information in DNB (Supplement).

8 Newth (1957) p,33.

9 Nature, vol. 9, March 4, 1875, p.344.

10 In mitigation, Baynes is said to have had “a weak heart and half a lung” (DNB Suppl.) and these physical debilities must serve to account for his increasing incapacity to cope with the formidable editorial duties demanded by EB⁹.

11 Green (1985) p.114. It is only fair to note that such practice was by no means uncommon in the Scottish universities of the time - cf. Bain, pp.120ff. for an amusing account. If Mark Pattison’s Memoirs (1885, pp.217f.) are to be believed, teaching at Oxford in the 1840s was in equally evil case.

12 EB⁹, vol.i (1875) p.v.

13 Ib.

14 Cf. Lyons’ EB article (above, n.1) which mentions D’Alembert likening the Encyclopédie to “a harlequin’s coat, and Voltaire’s celebrated comment that it was “built half of marble and half of wood”.

15 EB⁹ vol.i (1875) p.vi. The direct influence of T.H. Huxley and James Clerk Maxwell in those remarks is evident; indeed, Baynes remarks a little later (p.vii): “… I have been largely indebted to Professor Huxley and Professor Clerk Maxwell, whose valuable help in this matter I am glad to have an opportunity to acknowledge”. Leonard Huxley’s biography of his father (1900, pp.449ff.) quotes extensively from the latter’s letters to Baynes describing Huxley’s preliminary work, from 1873 onwards, on classifying and planning the biological topics.

16 Ib. This passage has all the hallmarks of Maxwell’s authorship.

17 Ib., p.vii.

18 Ib.

19 Ib., pp.viif.

20 The same might be said of his attitude towards Alexander Bain, J.S. Mill and, not least, Hegel.

21 See above, ch.x, p.190.

22 RepBA, 1874, p.xcvii.

23 Smith’s resolve did nevertheless weaken gradually, as we know from his correspondence. In July, 1880, for instance, following the renewal of hostilities in the wake of his article “Hebrew Language and Literature” in EB⁹ (vol xi, 1880, pp.594-602) he wrote to Black (A73): “I am not sure that I may not find it necessary to retire still – a disappointing result… It does not consort with my conscience to take any fresh pledges. Altogether I am both puzzled and distressed. Till now I have had really no difficulty in choosing a path of duty. But in present circumstances one does not know whether to go on or to go back”.

24 Cf. Lough (1971) p.398: “… as its enemies recognised from the start, here was a work [the Encyclopédie]which breathed a new spirit, one which was hostile to tradition and authority, which sought to subject all beliefs and institutions to a searching examination.”

25 Examples (out of many) are “Abdomen”; “Abscess”; “Absurdum, Reductio ad”.

26 Nature, vol.9, March 4, 1875, p.345. The reviewer’s sole criticism, however, was directed at the excessive proliferation of such “elaborate treatises”.

27 Ib.

28 Academy, vol. 7, 13 March, 1875, pp.257f. Cotton was editor of The Academy and it is indicative of the importance attached to the publication that he reviewed it personally.

29 Ib.: “The article on ‘America’ which is unsigned, is spoilt by gossipy narrative and unsound speculation; for both which reasons we were not surprised to find that it is substantially reprinted from the edition of 1842”.

30 Ib. The “gigantic speculation” in fact proved immensely profitable, as Newth (1957, p.41) relates, despite much unscrupulous pirating in the United States, in the absence of international agreement on copyright at the time.

31 Ib. The criticism seems decidedly unfair on several counts. Davidson’s steady drift towards Unitarianism may have been a factor in his being removed from the pool of contributors: cf. Rogerson (1984) esp. ch.14 for an account of Samuel Davidson’s career and of the allegations of plagiarism laid against him, particularly in respect of his inadequately acknowledged reliance on the writings of C.F. Keil. Davidson was 69 years old in 1875 but, as Rogerson (1984) p.208 notes, continued working actively until his death in 1898 at the age of 91.

32 EB⁹ vol.i (1875) p.136. Cf. B&C, p.188 where the Edinburgh Courant attack on Smith by A.H. Charteris is said to have been influenced by Davidson’s Pelagian interpretation of the Fall. The Courant article is arguably less dismissive of Smith than of Davidson, who had “boxed the critical compass” and reproduced “the wildest – often the cast-off speculations of the Tübingen school”.

33 However, for a somewhat excessively negative judgment of Davidson’s work, cf. Glover (1954) who writes (pp.46f.): “Davidson’s work was lacking in the evangelical warmth that nonconformists liked to find in religious works. Even though he made some effort in that direction, Davidson lacked the intellectual power to reconcile to a vital evangelical faith a criticism which was permeated with naturalistic assumptions. The result was that his criticism was virtually worthless and his evangelicalism was hopelessly compromised”.

34 Encyclopaedia Biblica, vol.i, col.54. Smith’s characteristic style is certainly evident at numerous points. The entire work is dedicated “to the memory of William Robertson Smith” and, in the Preface, Cheyne speaks of Smith having drafted “some hundreds” of articles for the Biblica. These were all reverently edited, revised or re-written, largely by Cheyne himself.

35 Ib., col.62.

36 Ib. It is reasonable to infer that the actual words here are attributable to Smith rather than to Cheyne.

37 The Academy, vol.9, 1876, pp.476-478.

38 Other notable contributors to the second volume included Huxley (“Animal Kingdom”), E.B. Tylor (“Anthropology”), Samuel Davidson (“Antichrist”), St George Mivart (“Ape”), A.B. Davidson (“Apocrypha”), T.M. Lindsay (Apologetics), Andrew Lang (“Apparitions”), Sydney Colvin (“Art”) and G. Croom Robertson (“The Laws of Association”).

39 Review of EB⁹, vol.iii, in The Athenaeum, March 11, 1876. The proportion of Scottish contributors was certainly high; on the other hand, it is worth noting also the significant number of articles from the hands of those who wrote regularly for the Academy: they included Huxley, William Rossetti, Sidney Colvin, Mark Pattison and Mrs Mark Pattison.

40 There was a fifth, unattributed, article on “Assideans”.

41 Alex. Macleod Symington: Scottish Tracts for the Times (ed. Wood, 1880), No.2, “Angels”. One wonders if it is a coincidence that this phrase exactly translates Diderot’s definition of an encyclopaedia: “Une encyclopédie est une exposition rapide et désinteressée …” (Lough, 1971, p.69).

42 All quotations are from the article in EB⁹, vol.iii (1875) pp.26-28.

43 FCSAP (1877) p.48. Brown’s complaint met with relatively little sympathy at this stage.

44 Symington (1880) p.2.

45 Symington (1880) p.3. This argument, derived from I Cor. 13: 9-12, was widely used by apologetic writers – cf. John Wordsworth in his 1881 Bampton Lectures of 1881.

46 Ib., p.5.

47 Ib., pp.8f.

48 Ib., p.11 (Symington’s emphasis). In relation to the ministering rôle of angels towards Jesus, Smith had written interrogatively, “… (and in Gethsemane?)”.

49 Ib., p.16.

50 Free Church Presbytery of Aberdeen (1877): Draft Form of Libel, p.19. The whole procedure followed the traditional principles and formal structures of Scots Law, whereby the “libel” signified the formal charge in its entirety. That in turn comprised one or more “major” elements, descriptive of the offence in general terms. These were supported or attested by subsidiary or “minor” elements detailing the specific components of the offence.

51 Huxley to Baynes, 12.10.1875: in L. Huxley (1900) p.452.

52 Smith’s biographers (B&C, p.159) make it plain that he consulted regularly with T.M. Lindsay and J.S. Black about the suitability of his early articles, in terms both of Baynes’ criteria and of his own position as a Free Church professor.

53 EB⁹ vol.iii (1875) p.644 “Philosophically, the Tübingen school starts from the position so clearly laid down by Strauss, that a miraculous interruption of the laws of nature stamps the narrative in which it occurs as unhistorical, or, at least … hampers the narrative with such extreme improbability that the positive evidence in favour of its truth would require to be much stronger …”.

54 As Walter Woods not unfairly remarked in Scottish Tracts for the Times (1880, p3): “Any theory which he might put forward, especially within the range of the subjects belonging to his professional appointment, was certain to be held, and justly so, as so far implicating the Free Church”.

55 Ib., p.4 (Woods’ emphases).

56 EB⁹ , vol.iii (1875) p.634. Cf. Woods’ expostulation (1880, p.5): “Development seems to have got on the brain in all our scientific circles and in some cases has led to astounding conclusions”.

57 EB⁹, ib. In modern terms, they would no doubt be designated “agents of change”.

58 Ib. Smith continues: “That the religious ideas of the Old Testament were in a state of growth during the whole prophetic period became manifest as soon as the laws of grammatico-historical exegesis were fairly applied to the Hebrew Scriptures”.

59 Ib., p.637. Smith’s use of the adjective positive is interesting, given its contemporary connotations with Comtean rationalism. The book of Deuteronomy was, for Smith, a paradigm for social progress, attributed to Moses by its author in order to endow it with authority: “… not in pious fraud, but to expound and develop Mosaic principles in relation to new needs”(ib., p.638).

60 Ib., p.635. Smith naturally presents in some detail the evidence for an evolving legislative framework to be found within the Pentateuch but it is understandable that the sheer compactness of the article offered little opportunity for the ready assimilation of his whole thesis by those unfamiliar with contemporary critical scholarship. He was able to redress the balance, however, in his later lectures, published in 1881 as The Old Testament in the Jewish Church.

61 Ib., p.636. The imputation of pseudonymous authorship especially incensed Smith’s opponents.

62 Cf. Rogerson (1995) p.166: “What the English demand and require is ready-made answers. Colenso expected far too much of his [English] compatriots!”

63 Woods (1880) Tract No.1, “The Bible”, p.15.

64 EB⁹ vol.iii (1875) p 635.

65 Ib.

66 Ib.

67 Ib., p.641: “The people never wearied of these mysterious revelations couched in strange symbolic and enigmatic forms, and placed in the mouths of ancient patriarchs and worthies, which held forth golden visions of deliverance and vengeance in a shape which, because crasser and earthlier, was also more palpable than the spiritual hopes of the old prophets”.

68 Ib., p.640. This allegedly defamatory statement, along with Smith’s fuller expression of similar sentiments in the BQR article of April,1870, “The question of prophecy in the critical schools of the Continent” (see above, ch.vii.), formed the core of the seventh specific charge (“Septimo”) laid against Smith by the Presbytery in their Draft Form of Libel (1877).

69 From his correspondence, WRS seems to display a low level of interest in contemporary politics, although there are some passing references in letters written to his brother, Charles Michie Smith, at Madras Christian College in India. Smith was never enthusiastic in his opinion of Gladstone.

70 See B&C, pp.188-190 for a fuller account. The date is erroneously given as 16 April on p.188 but correctly at p.190. There seems no doubt about the attribution of the article to Dr A.H. Charteris, a minister of the Established Church and Professor of Biblical Criticism at Edinburgh University.

71 Quoted in B&C, p.189.

72 The parallel with the long-held concept of obscenity in literature as a criminal offence is obvious.

73 Cf. Case of Rev. Professor Smith (anon., 1878, p.35): “The Church of Rome has long been accustomed to recommend certain opinions to the faith of her adherents, not because they have been defined as articles of faith … but simply because their acceptance forecloses troublesome questions and facilitates that indolent acquiescence in the received doctrine of the Church, which in that communion passes for an act of piety”.

74 Ib., pp. 63f.: “No criticism can be other than hurtful to faith if it shakes the confidence with which the simple Christian turns to the Bible …”. He goes on to argue that the ordinary believer is unconcerned by such matters. Yet, as Smith’s biographers observe (B&C, p.220): “The mere statement of these advances [in Biblical scholarship] by one who explicitly and repeatedly avowed his adherence to the strictest evangelical orthodoxy was sufficient to strike terror into the devout, and to make it impossible thenceforth for even the faithful to believe quite in the same way”.

75 B&C, pp.230f. Cf. FCSAP, p.91, for Smith’s statement to the 1877 Assembly: “ … I will ask that all the charges against me be reduced to the form of a libel … so that my functions as a teacher may be suspended until the case is exhausted …”.

76 See especially B&C, pp.239-241 and also in the relevant “Minutes of Presbytery of Aberdeen” (in Case of Rev. Professor Smith, pp.89ff.). For the initial report by the College Committee, prepared for the General Assembly, see FCSAP, Report No.V. (A) (1877).

77 See “Form of Libel” in Case of Rev Professor Smith (anon., 1878) pp.1-22.

78 Cf. B&C, p.244: “It is a spirited performance in the best and most dignified controversial style and in every way worthy of its author”. Black and Chrystal’s account of the whole legal process remains the most detailed and accurate of the numerous accounts available.

79 Case of Rev. Professor Smith (anon., 1878), pp.1f.

80 Ib., p.32.

81 Ib., p.33. Smith’s argument here well illustrates the disjunction between his personal faith and his critical study of the Hebrew Bible.

82 Ib., p.37: “[A contributor’s] main object is not to state his own views at all but simply to give a résumé of the present condition of learning and scientific opinion”.

83 Smith states here that it had been “determined that such an account of the doctrine of Scripture … should come under a separate heading”. Whether planned originally or not, no such article subsequently appeared in EB⁹.

84 Ib., p.39.

85 Ib., pp.49f.

86 Ib., p.50. Smith carefully illustrates (ib., p.65) how neither Luther nor Zwingli feared to undertake radical exegesis of the biblical text. Earlier (p.46) he compares the extreme literalism of some (Protestant) theologians with regard to the meaning of the “Word of God” to the similarly literalist Roman Catholic view of the words, “This is my body”.

87 Ib., p.47. Had he chosen to cite Plato’s metaphor of the Cave, Smith might well have identified the text with the shadows by which we dimly discern the form which is the Word.

88 Ib., p.43. Cf. p.44 for an almost identical statement of WRS’s evangelical faith: “In [the Bible] we see God drawing near to man, revealing to us His redeeming love, choosing a people for Himself, and declaring to them His mind and will”.

89 WRS does not explain here what he means by “rationalistic assumptions” but the earlier quotation (see n.78 above) makes it plain that he refers to the kind of argument used by Lewes (and indeed Huxley) to deny that the supernatural is open to scientific study.

90 Ib., pp.59f. An intellectual challenge of this nature was always implicit in Smith’s defence, both oral and written, and it was one from which his accusers consistently shrank. Moreover, their persistent misrepresentation of Smith’s position (e.g. in relation to Deuteronomy) was, as his biographers noted (B&C, p.270), an example of “intellectual dishonesty which was only half unconscious”.

91 Ib., p.67. Smith complained, however, that the libel attributed to him the expression “spiritual insight” in relation to the prophets, whereas he had written “spiritual intuition”, meaning the supernatural apperception of divine revelation as implied in the Hebrew root . It is hard to see much meaningful distinction between “insight” and “intuition”, however, especially as Smith himself speaks (ib.) of “[the prophets’] insight into the future purpose of God”.

92 Ib., p.86.

93 Cf. B&C, pp263ff.

94 Cf. the letters from A.H. Sayce (D486), A.P. Stanley (D695) and Eberhart Nestlé (D494). In additional to expressing his personal admiration for WRS’s “Additional Answer”, Nestlé remarks: “with a singular, almost sad feeling I have noticed the fact that it was about the same time of the year, pretty nearly the same day (21^st of May) two hundred years ago, that Richard Simon was expelled from his Order & his Histoire Critique du V.T. burnt with fire, and why? Because: Moïse ne peut-être l’auteur de tous les livres qui lui sont attribués. Do we really make progress in the course of centuries or not? Let us hope so despite of the sad experience which you have made. Let us go on working quietly and faithfully in the cause of science; it is at the same time the cause of true religion”.

95 See B&C, p,600ff. (Appendix C).

96 Ib., p.602.

97 Ib., p.324.

98 ib., p.325. Smith’s biographers are here paraphrasing Carnegie Simpson in his biography of Principal Rainy.

99 D458 (24.6.79) and in B&C, p.326. James Candlish, professor (from 1872) of Systematic Theology at the Free Church College in Glasgow and son of Robert S. Candlish, Principal of New College from 1862 until 1874, had been a steadfast but cautious supporter of Smith throughout. His many letters to Smith are characterised throughout by a concern for prudence and diplomacy. As editor of the British and Foreign Evangelical Review, he was nevertheless able to give space to both sides, even though the general tone of the journal was strongly evangelical.

100 As early as June, 1877, T.K. Cheyne had half-jokingly written to Smith (D143): “One of our Fellows suggests that you should sign the 39 Articles, & take the next vacant Balliol living. In 1880, Smith turned down the offer of a chair at Harvard University and the post went to C.H. Toy, following his forced resignation from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. See D218 and B&C, pp.340ff.

101 The earliest indication that Smith was taking a direct hand in the editorial supervision of articles of a religious nature comes in a letter to him from Edwin A. Abbot in June, 1879. Abbot had contributed the lengthy (102 page) article “Gospels” and his letter comments on suggestions which Smith had made on the proof sheets.

102 D144 (22.1.1877). It would seem that Smith prudently accepted this proposal during the height of the battle, since the articles “Cosmogony” and “Daniel” in the sixth volume (CLI-DAY)came from Cheyne’s pen. There was only one signed contributions from WRS – “David” – in this volume.

103 This was a frequently used editorial expedient when individual contributions were not forthcoming on time. Cf. Newth (1957) pp.32f. for an amusing account of how Lord Rayleigh’s procrastination in producing his article on Light necessitated successive changes of title, first to “Optics”, then to “Undulatory Theory of Light” and finally to “Wave Theory of Light”.

104 At Smith’s suggestion, Wellhausen had already contributed the article “Israel” in the thirteenth volume (INF-CAN) published in 1880.

105 “The progress of religious thought in Scotland”: ContempRev, vol.xxix (1876-77) p.535.

106 Ib., p.545.

107 Ib., p.548.

108 Ib.

109 E.g., p.547: “It is … truly a marvel that Professor Smith’s views have been received in Scotland after all so quietly and that the College committee of the Free Church have found that there is no ‘ground sufficient to support a process of heresy against him’ ”.

110 Cf. B&C, pp.223f.: “ ‘The Bible,’ he declared, ‘is the supreme authority. It is an authority in this sense, that all that the Christian can wish to have for salvation is in it, and also that he will not find in it anything contrary to the truth.’ ”.