150 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



nevertheless represents a version much nearer to the common source. 

 Yet the contrary oi)inion prevails among the majority of orthodox 

 students, because they take as their point of departure the necessary 

 infallibility and priority of Genesis. 



Sometimes the prejudice is frankly avowed. In January, 1880, 

 the Abbe de Broglie began at the Catholic Institute of Paris a course 

 on the history of non-Christian religions, and the " Polybiblion " of 

 the next month gave the following summary of his opening lecture : 

 " He proposes to show from the history of the most widely spread 

 false cults that they are not to be compared with Christianity, and, 

 coming down from generalities to a more special study, he will make 

 a brilliant demonstration of the superiority of our religion." This 

 is not history, but apologetics.* 



We very frequently meet with an inverse kind of apologetics 

 among the adversaries of religious ideas. In fact, the anti-religious 

 prejudice, which rests, like the religious prejudice, on an exclusive view 

 of things, is a direct result of dogmatic intolerance. If one is in the 

 habit of regarding the ideas of others as a heap of superstitions and 

 impostures, it is easy to conceive that, when he loses faith in the su- 

 pernatural origin of beliefs, he will confound all the religions of the 

 earth and the religious sentiment itself in a contempt that will hence- 

 forth recognize no exception. 



Some think that to occupy themselves with religions is to waste 

 time ; as if religious questions did not figure among the vital questions 

 of our epoch. " When I published the translation of the * Life of 

 Jesus,' by Strauss," writes Littre,f " the objection was made, from the 

 point of view of the freethinker and revolutionist, that I was under- 

 taking a wholly useless work, and one that was out of date, and that 

 the eighteenth century had performed, better than all the Strausses in 

 the world, all the work of demolition that was needed. Yes, the neg- 

 ative work, but not the positive Avork. And this is no subtile dis- 

 tinction that stops short of going to the bottom of things. Let us 

 consider the aberrations that haunted the mind of the eighteenth 

 century on the subject of religions. It was impossible for it to com- 

 prehend anything of their origin, of the part they played, or of their 

 life. They were, according to some, inventions of crafty men who 

 Avorked upon popular credulity and thereby gained power and wealth. 

 According to others, nothing could be seen in them but periods of 

 ignorance and superstition which it was impossible sufficiently to de- 



* Tlie abbe seems to have recop;Tiizcfl this hhiisclf, for at the beginning of his third 

 rear (1881-'82) on the " History of the Religions of India," he changed the title of his 

 lectures to " Course of Christian Apologetics." What, now, becomes of the compliment 

 addressed by the " Polybiblion " to the Catholic Institute of Paris for having inaugurated 

 a course on " Comparative Religion " before the state, with the resources of the budget at 

 its disposal, organized one at the Coll(:'»ge dc France ? 



f Sec the review " La Philosophic Positive," vol. xxil, p. 368. 



