rot 



KKLIKF 



RELIGION 



Catholic* in the practice of relic- worship. On the 

 contrary, the Reformed churches, without excep- 

 tion, have rejected the usage ; though iin Trillions 

 relic worship is rife enough, in tin- form of swouls 

 of Wallace ami Bruce, Kicks of Prince Charlie's 

 hair, \-c. The practice of relic- wonhip fonns a 

 notable feature of the .Mi>liiiiuinelaii usage of 

 pilgrimage*, and is an even more important 

 feature of Buddhism. 



Itrlirf. .i~ distinguished from ' sculpture in the 

 niiiinl,' is one of the oldest forms of nm.al decora- 

 tion, and in many cases is a subordinate depart- 

 in-lit of architectural art rather than a branch of 

 -ulpture proper. It is low relief (bas-relief, basso- 

 rilievo). middle (mezzo-rilievo), and high relief 

 (Hlto-rilievp) according as the carved figures pro- 

 ject very little, in a moderate degree, or in a very 



t siderable degree from the background. The 



ancient Egyptians practised a peculiar kind of 

 low relief ami intaglio combined (see EoYPT, Vol. 

 IV. p. 2.'t7 ). The wall-sculptures of Assyria ( o. v. ) 

 and Itahylonia (q.v.) are mostly in very low relief. 

 The Elgin Marbles (q.v.), from the Parthenon of 

 Athens, are the most notable example of high 

 relief. See SCULPTURE. 



Kolief Churches. See UNITED PRESBY- 

 TERIAN CHURCH. 



Relieving Officer. See POOR-LAWS. 



Kclitfion. The term has since the 16th cen- 

 tury become naturalised in mo-i Kuiope.-m lan- 

 guages. It has even in the Teutonic tongues taken 

 the place of the native terms formerly in use. As 

 to its etymology, the derivation from reliiitjuere is 

 iiniversallv recognised to lie inconsistent with 

 phonetic laws ; the necessity for assuming the 

 existence of a lost transitive verb liqere, 'to look,' 

 has not l>een made out ; and the derivation from 

 relcgere (Cicero, If at. I>?ur. ii. '2S), which implies 

 riirrfulnttt and attention to what concerns the 

 ends to be the primary signification of the word, is 

 better than that from relitjare (Lactantius, Inst. 

 Din. iv. 28), which refers the origin of religion to a 

 sense of dependence on or connection with, Deity 

 by the bonil of iiirli/, inasmuch as the latter does 

 not accord with the way in which the ancient 

 Romans used the twins r<Y///ou and reJigiottu, and 

 supposes in them n higher conception of religion 

 than they are likely to have possessed. Tin; 

 Lactantian derivation, however, has not been 

 shown to violate any known linguistic law; and 

 the reason which Professor Max-. M tiller gives 

 (Natural Religion, p. 35) as 'the real objection' 

 to it does not apply to it at all. It is not ' the fact 

 that in classical Latin rcli<pirr is never used in the 

 sense of binding or holding back.' Binding or 

 holding hack, or behind, or fast., is its common 

 meaning in classical Latin ; it is it- meaning in 

 Caesar, Cicero, Suetonius, Virgil, Horace, and 

 Ovid. It- only other meaning is to imliind. 



General terras equivalent in meaning to religion 

 are not to be found even in Midi languages as 

 Chinese, Sanskrit, Hebrew, or Arabic, and need 

 not of course be looked for in tin- languages of 

 uncultured peoples. There is no definition of re- 

 ligion in the Bible, nor any designation or descrip- 

 tion of it which applies to the heathen religions. 

 The Fathers and Schoolmen at tempted only to give 

 a definition of trut. religion. The ditlieiilty of 

 framing a correct definition of religion is very 

 great. Such a definition ought to apply to nothing 

 but religion, and to differentiate religion from every- 

 thing else, as, for example, from imaginative 

 idealisation, art, morality, or philosophy. It should 

 apply to everything which is naturally and com- 

 monly railed religion ; to religion as a subjective 

 spiritual state, and to all rriiifionn, high or low, 

 true or false, which have obtained objective his- 



torical realisation. And it should neither ex- 

 pressly nor by implication exclude any essential 

 clement of religion, but express in a general way 

 all that is nccessaiily included in its nature, indis- 

 pensable to its notion. Since the need for defini- 

 tions of thin kind was felt i.e. since the compara- 

 tive study of religions began to be cultivated 

 numerous attempts to supply it have been made, 

 but few, if any, of the definitions of religion as yet 

 proposed fulfil all the requirement*. Those of 

 Kant, Fichte, Schleierniachcr, Hegel, Strauss, 

 Wundt, Plleiderer, Herbert Spencer, Matthew 

 Arnold, Tylor, John Caird, and Max-Muller have 

 attracted most attention. 



The classification of religions also presents great 

 difficulties. To distribute them into ( 1 ) true and 

 false religions, or (2) natural and revealed religions, 

 or (3) natural and positive religions, or (4) religions 

 of savage and of civilised Copies, or (5) book- 

 religions and religions not possessed of sacred 

 books, or (6) individual religions (i.e. founded by 

 great individual teachers) and national or race 

 religions (i.e. the collective products of |M>oples or 

 lares, the growth of generations), must obviously 

 lie scientifically inadequate and unsatisfactory, 

 although some of the classifications thus obtained, 

 may not be without truth or interest. Max-Muller 

 holds that 'the onjy scientific and truly gem-tic. 

 classification of religions is the same as that of 

 languages,' and Maurice Vernes that they must be 

 classified according to races. And there can be no 

 doubt that, if religions, languages, and races are 

 properly classified, the classifications will, on the 

 whole, correspond or coincide. Still they ought 

 to be classified independently, from a study of their 

 own proper natures, and a complete accordance of 

 their classifications is not to be looked for. The 

 fact, for instance, that thereare univeisal religions, 

 religions not limited by language or price, must not 

 be ignored or depreciated. Hegel's -la-silication is 

 very ingenious and suggestive. He distributes 

 religions into religions of nXture, religions of 

 spirituality, and the absolute or Christian religion, 

 answering respectively liolh to the chief stages of 

 the historical realisation of religion, and to the 

 childhood, youth, and manhood of humanity. The 

 religions of nature are rapNMBted as including 



( 1 ) immediate religion (sorcery and fetish- worship); 



(2) pantheistic religion, which comprehends the 

 religion of measure (China), the religion of phan- 

 tasy (liraliminisin ), and the religion of bcing-in- 

 itself (Buddhism) ; and (3) religion which tends to 

 freedom, and which is exemplified in the religion of 

 the good or of light i ancient Persian), the religion 

 of sorrow (Syrian), and the religion of mystery 

 (Kgypt). The religions of spirituality are held to 

 be these three the religion of sublimity ( Hebrew), 

 the religion of lieauty (Creek), and the religion of 

 the understanding ( Roman ). The classification of 

 Von Hartmann is of the same character, being 

 MTV ingeniously conformed to the needs of his own 

 philosophy, ami yet not conspicuously inconsistent 

 with the facts. The classiiicntions of Lnbbock, 

 Tylor, Spencer, Keville, nnd D'Alviclla deserve 

 attention as l>cing based on an extensive and close 

 study of religions, including those vague and rude 

 religions to which it is especially difficult to assign 

 appropriate places in a natural and comprehensive 

 sehcnie of distribution. No general agreement, 

 however, has been as yet reached either in deter- 

 mining the species of these religions or the order 

 of their succession. 



Professor Tiele classifies religions as follows : 

 I. Nature religions, which comprehend (a) Polydae- 

 monistic magical religions under the control of 

 animism; (b) Purified or organised magical reli- 

 gions Therianthropic polytheism, (1) unorganised 

 and (2) organised; (c) Worship of manlike but 



