THE 



POPULAR SCIENCE 

 MON"THLY. 



DECEMBEE, 1885. 



THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF EELIGIONS. 



By the Count GOBLET D'ALVIELLA, 



PEOFESSOE OF THE HISTOEY OF EELIGI0N3 IN THE UNIVEESITY OF BEUSSEL9. 



THE general history of religions is taught, if I am not mistaken, 

 only in Leyden, Paris, Tubingen, and Geneva. In giving a place 

 to this new branch, the University of Brussels has again shown its 

 fidelity to the liberal spirit that actuated its founders. Imperfectly 

 qualified as I am to give direction to studies on this subject, I am en- 

 couraged to undertake it by the thought that to teach the history of 

 religions, it is not necessary to be acquainted with all the languages of 

 all the peoples who have professed them. I am far from depreciating 

 such knowledge, and readily recognize that the founders of the science 

 of religions have nearly all been trained in special studies of this very 

 kind. But all the branches of the ancient literatures, through the dis- 

 coveries of those who have so laboriously delved in them, now offer 

 general results sufliciently certain and well developed to enable us, 

 without doing over the work of the specialists, to attempt the synthe- 

 sis of their conclusions, and relate the history of religions as we do the 

 history of arts, sciences, languages, or peoples. 



Henceforth the science of religions will be chiefly a question of 

 method and assimilation. As Professor Tiele stated in 1877, for the 

 Assyrio-Babylonian religion : " The historian, the ethnologist, and the 

 scholar, who devote themselves to the science of comparative religions, 

 have each their several tasks. The domain they occupy can no more 

 be disputed as against them than they can encroach upon that of the 

 epigraphist and the philologist." 



It might be asked why, if it is so easy to get positive information 

 on the nature of the different religions, it is not more widely diffused. 



VOL. SXTIII. — 10 



