TEN GREAT RELIGIONS.

SECOND PART.

INTRODUCTION.

CHAPTER I.

DESCRIPTION AND CLASSIFI-
CATION.

§ 1. Object of the present Volume. § 2. The Science of Religion. § 3. Religious Aspect of the World B. c. 1100. Egypt. India. Greece. Persia. Buddhism. § 4. Definition of Religion. § 5. Religion is Universal. Exceptional Cases examined by Mr. Tylor. § 6. Religious Statistics of the World. § 7. False Classifications of the Religions of the World. § 8. A better Method of Classification. Tribal, Ethnic, and Catholic. § 9. Ethnic Religions are confined to Special Races, are not founded by a Prophet, are Polytheisms, and do not lay Stress on Morality. Catholic Religions spread beyond the Boundaries of Race, are founded by a Single Prophet, are Monotheisms, and inculcate Morality.

§ 1. Object of the present volume.

THE first part of this work, published some years since, was chiefly analytical and descriptive. It endeavored to give a distinct account

of the character and history of the Ten Great Religions of the World. The purpose of the present volume is to compare them with each other, in order to learn what each teaches concerning God, the Soul, the Origin of the World, Worship, Inspiration, Right and Wrong, and the Future Life. We shall consider this important, interesting, but complex and difficult subject—the Comparison of the Religions of Mankind to see wherein they agree and wherein they differ; to learn, if we may, something of their origin, whether from earth or heaven; to see what measure of truth each may contain, and what is likely to be the future religious history of our race.

Everything becomes more intelligible when compared with something else of the same sort. It has been well said that "he who only understands one language does not understand any language." The same thing, to some extent, may be said about religion. We cannot look on any religion with indifference.

It is thought by many, I know, that science, in its immense activity, large sweep, and vast demands upon our intelligence, has permanently called away the attention of thinking men from the world within to the world without. But science in its deepest sense includes all knowledge; it cannot be confined to the study of the outward world. It takes for its domain the whole

range of phenomenal existence, the entire circuit of human experience. It is compelled, by the necessity of its nature, to observe and analyze all phenomena, and endeavor to bring them under law. Positive knowledge includes the facts of the soul as well as those of sense, and Auguste Comte, having begun by declaring that all questions of theology must be repudiated as insoluble, ended by constructing a private theology of his

own.

For a time many scientific men may stand aloof from religion, but the same immortal nature is in them as in all other men. The same questions must arise in their souls as in others to whom knowledge has never unrolled her ample page, rich with the spoils of time. Blame no honest man for his doubts. Better than blind assent is conscientious denial; better than the passive acceptance of the most important truth is the loyalty to truth which refuses to speak until it can see. "There is more faith," says Tennyson, "in honest doubt than in half our creeds;" and Milton said long before that if a man believes only because his pastor or his church says so, though his belief be true, he himself is a heretic, so that the very truth he holds becomes a heresy. Still, the soul of man is not fed by doubt, but by belief; the intellect lives by faith, not by denial. Agnosticism may be an important medicine for a tempo

rary condition, but knowledge is the food by which

we grow.

§ 2. The Science of Religion.

Is there such a department of knowledge as "The Science of Religion," or such a method as "The Scientific Study of Religion"? If there is such a method, it must consist in the faithful study of the facts, and a careful generalization from those facts. It must be free from prejudice for or against any system. Instead of condemning a religion for its polytheism, its idolatry, or its superstitious practices, it must endeavor to find the source of those practices in human nature, or in the environment. Thus only can we reach what may deserve to be called a "Science of Religion."

Physical Science has been described as consisting of three steps: (1.) Observation of facts; (2.) Induction of laws from those facts; (3.) Verification of these laws by experiment. Observation of facts alone does not constitute science. Induction and observation without verification do not constitute science. If these three factors are applicable in religious investigation, then religion can become a science, but not otherwise.

The facts of consciousness constitute the basis of religious science. These facts are as real, and as constant as those which are perceived through the senses. Faith, Hope, and Love, are as real