In the foregoing pages the available methods of criticism have been considered separately, and thus stock has been taken of the instruments within reach for the performance of this very delicate work. It remains to inquire how these instruments are to be used in the actual prosecution of criticism. Each method makes its own promises and attains for us its own results. But we must not permit ourselves to be satisfied with results obtained by one method only. The best criticism is rather that which makes the fullest use of all the methods, and checks and conditions and extends the results of each by the results of all. The value of combination of the methods is twofold. We thus obtain a system of checks: we may test the results obtained by one method by the results obtained by another, and by repeated trials preserve ourselves from error. And we obtain what may be called a system of relays: where one method fails to give a confident verdict, another may be called in, and thus their combination may enable us to carry criticism several stages farther than would be possible by one method alone. The effect of using a variety of methods, therefore, is both to extend the sphere which our criticism is able to reach and more firmly to settle the text over its whole extent. The first rule for the application of these methods, therefore, is to apply them all. Let no one be slighted; let each be used carefully and independently, and the results obtained by each carefully compared together. When the findings of the various methods agree the conclusion is certain, and we may feel sure that we have attained the autographic text. When they disagree, opportunity is given for review and revision of the whole process, with the not infrequent result of the discovery of an error, the correction of which will harmonise the evidence. By this repeated and, if need be, again repeated verification of our processes, our conclusions attain ever firmer standing; and it is very seldom indeed that the verdicts of the different kinds of evidence may not be brought into agreement. Until they agree some doubt continues to cling to our conclusions; and the canon may safely be formulated that no reading can be finally accepted against which any form of evidence immovably protests.
Experience further indicates to us that it is not a matter of entire indifference in what order we use the various methods of criticism. Certain of them are more liable than others to be swerved by the mental state of the critic, and it is a good rule to begin with the most objective. Certain of them yield at best only probable results, and it is a good rule to begin with the most decisive. Certain of them are largely negative in their findings, and it is a good rule to begin with the most positive. For each of these reasons it is safest to begin with the external evidence, and only when its bearing has been at least provisionally determined, to proceed to the internal evidence of readings. To begin with internal evidence of readings, especially with intrinsic evidence, runs very great risk of so filling the mind with the feeling that such or such a reading ought to stand in the text, that we may end by unconsciously making it stand there, against the evidence. The best procedure, and that most likely to issue soundly, is to begin with the consideration of the genealogical evidence, and when its results are obtained, to proceed to-internal evidence of groups, and thence to internal evidence of readings,—usually in the order of, first, the transcriptional, and, secondly, the intrinsic evidence. When genealogical evidence speaks with force, it yields a testimony which ranks above all others in ease and certainty of interpretation, and consequently, by beginning with it, we consider, first, the surest evidence, and gradually proceed to that of more doubtful interpretation, although of no less finality when its meaning is certainly attained. After the evidence is all in, our next duty is to compare and harmonise the several results. When they are finally and hopelessly discordant, nothing is left us but to consider whether the oldest transmitted text may not itself be corrupt, and thus differ from the autographic text.
Perhaps the best way to exhibit the right procedure in criticism is by means of an example or two. Let us look at the famous reading in Acts xx. 28, where we have the following variations:— - κυριον, A, C*, D, E, 13, 15, 36, 40, 69, 110, 118, and eight others; g of the Old Latin, Memphitic, Thebaic, margin of the Harclean Syriac, Armenian, Irenæus (Latin), (Athanasius), Didymus, Jerome, etc. - θεου, B, א, 68, lectionary 12, and twelve others; Vulgate Latin, (Peshitto), text of the Harclean Syriac, Epiphanius, Basil, Theodore of Mopsuestia (Latin), Cyril of Alexandria, etc. - χριστου, Æthiopic, perhaps the Peshitto, m of the Old Latin (Jesu Christi). - κυριον και θεον, C³, H, L, P, most minuscules, Slavonic, Theophylact, etc. - θεου και κυριον, 47. - κυριου θεου, 3, 95**.