EVOLUTION OF CIVILIZATION AND THE ARTS. 343 



extent that they no longer have any visible relationship with the 

 creeds of which they keep the name. Thus, the Buddhism of 

 China is so different from the Buddhisms of other countries that 

 it is hardly recognizable as the same religion ; and the Buddhism 

 of India is different from that of Nepaul, and that is far removed 

 from the Buddhism of Ceylon. 



Brahmanism, too, exhibits various aspects among the different 

 races of India, of which it is the nominal religion. All these peo- 

 ples doubtless regard Vishnu and Siva as their chief divinities, 

 and the Vedas as their sacred books ; but the chief divinities have 

 impressed only their names, and the sacred books only their texts, 

 on the religion. By their sides are innumerable forms of wor- 

 ship in which we find, among the several races, the most various 

 beliefs — monotheism, polytheism, fetichism, pantheism, ancestor- 

 worship, devil-worship, animal-worship, etc. The titles of the 

 sacred books are venerated by all Brahmans, but of the religion 

 they teach there is none. 



Islam has not escaped this law, even though its monotheism 

 be so simple. It is a long distance from the Mohammedanism of 

 Persia to that of Arabia and that of India. Polytheistic India has 

 found a way to make the most monotheistic of creeds polytheistic. 

 To the fifty million Mussulmans of India, Mohammed and the 

 saints of Islam are only new gods added to thousands of other 

 gods. Islam has not succeeded in establishing in India that equal- 

 ity of all men that has made its success everywhere else. The 

 Mussulmans of India have their castes, like the Hindus. In Al- 

 geria, the Arabs and the Berbers are both Mussulman ; but the 

 Arabs are polygamous, while the Berbers are monogamous, and 

 their religion is simply a fusion of Islam with their ancient pa- 

 ganism. The religions of Europe are not exempt from this law. 

 As in India, the dogmas established by Scripture remain inviolate, 

 but they are merely vain formulas which each race interprets in 

 its own way. Under the general denomination of Christians we 

 find real pagans, like the Bas Breton, praying to idols ; fetich-wor- 

 shipers, like the Spaniard, adoring amulets ; and polytheists, like 

 the Italian, worshiping the Madonnas of each village as different 

 divinities. Pursuing the subject further, it would be easy to show 

 that the great religious schism of the Reformation was the neces- 

 sary consequence of different interpretations of the same religious 

 book by quite different races — the peoples of the north of Europe 

 desiring to discuss their creed and regulate their lives for them- 

 selves, and those of the south being more backward than they in 

 independence and philosophical spirit. 



The same rule as with religions prevails with institutions and 

 languages. They can not be transmitted without becoming modi- 

 fied. Consider how often in modern times the same institutions, im- 



