636 



RELIGION 



out null in in : but Ixitli psychology ami history, 

 Ixitli internal analysis and external observation, 

 seem to disprove tin- hypothesis. Religion has 

 ..it. 'ii been resolved into feeling or sentiment. 

 Tims Lucretius, Hobbes, and Strauss have traced 

 it mainly to fear; the followers of Hitachi to 

 a desire to secure life ami its goods amidst the 



in rt.-iinties and evils of earth ; the disciples 



of Schleierraacher to a feeling of absolute depend- 

 ence, of pure and entire passiveness ; and others 

 e.g. Brinton and Newman Smyth to the religions 

 feeling regarded either as "a distinct primary 

 feeling or a peculiar compound feeling. Kant 

 represented religion as essentially a sanction 

 for duty, and Matthew Arnold has denned it as 

 4 morality touched by emotion,' ' ethics heightened, 

 enkindled, lit up by" feeling.' This great diversity 

 of views of itself indicates what investigation is 

 found to confirm viz., that religion is a vast and 

 complex thing, an inexhaustible field for psycho- 

 logical study. Almost all the views referred to 

 have some truth in them, and most of them are 

 only false in so far as they assume themselves to be 

 exclusively true. The whole nature of man has 

 been formed for religion, anil is engaged and 

 exercised in religion. Every piinciple of that 

 nature which has lieen singled out as the root of 

 religion has really contributed to its rise and 

 development. The study of religion as a process 

 of miii'l. and of the factors which condition and 

 determine its development, is the special task of 

 the psychology of religion, a department of re- 

 search to which many contributions have been 

 made since Hume initiated it in his Nat urn I 

 History of Religion (1759) by showing the iin]mrt- 

 ance of the distinction between the causes and 

 the rauont of religion. 



A religion is a group or whole of religious 

 phenomena of religious beliefs, practices, and in- 

 stitutions so closely connected with one another 

 as to be thereby differentiated from those of any 

 other religion. Each religion has had a history, 

 and ite rise and spread, formation and transforma- 

 tions, as a religion can only be truly traced by being 

 historically traced. Also religions are historically 

 connected, are related to one another, and have 

 influenced one another, in ways which may be dis- 

 covered, and can only lie discovered, by historical 

 research. Hence the History of Religions is also 

 the history of religion, not an aggregation of the 

 histories of particular religions, but a truly general 

 history. Like the histories of art, industry, science, 

 and society in general, it is found on examination 

 to have been a process of darekwDMnl in which 

 each stage of religion has proceeded gradually from 

 antecedent factors and conditions. The precise 

 nature of the development ran only be ascertained 

 by investigation of the history itself. No hy]>o- 

 thesis of development should be assumed as a pre- 

 supposition of such investigation. Naturalistic. 



.'piinrism is as illegitimate in historical inquiry as 

 theological or metaphysical apriorism. The history 

 religion is not only of great importance in itself. 



Inn inilisjieiisable to the right understanding of 

 general history, of the history of art, of philosophy. 

 &c. It has licen studied with more zeal and 

 success during the Ulth century than in all the 

 preceding ages. The history of religions liclici's j~. 

 of course, only a part of the history of religions. 

 It is, however, distinguishable, although in-epai 

 able, from it, and is often and conveniently de-ig- 

 nated Comparative Theology. It comprehends 

 comparative mythology and the history of doc- 

 myth" being )>elicfs which are mainly the 

 products of imagination and dodrines of rolled ion. 

 The Psychology of Keligion, the History of 

 Religions, mid Comparative Theology are clearly 

 distinct, and ought not to be confounded. At the 



same time they are closely connected. They agree 

 in that they are alike occupied with religion as an 

 empirical fact. Hence they may In- regarded as 

 parts of a comprehensive science, to which it 

 might lie well to confine the designation 'Science 

 of Religions,' instead of using it in the vague and 

 ambiguous way which is so common. Thus under- 

 stood, the Science of Religions may be said to deal 

 with religion as a phenomenon of experience, 

 whether outwardly manifested in history or in- 

 wardly realised in consciousness ; to seek to 

 describe and explain religions experience so far as 

 it can be descrilied and explained without trans- 

 cending the religions experience itself. Its 

 students have only to ascertain, analyse, explain, 

 and exhibit experienced fact. Were religion a 

 physical fact, to study it merely as a fact would be 

 enough. The astronomer, the naturalist, the 

 chemist have no need to judge their facts : they 

 have only to describe them, analyse them, and 

 determine their relations. But it is otherv 

 with the students of religion, of morality, of art, 

 of reasoning. They soon come to a point where 

 they must become judges of the phenomena and 

 pronounce on their truth and worth. Experience 

 in the physical sphere is experience and nothing 

 more ; experience in the spiritual sphere is very 

 often experience of what is irreverent and impious, 

 immoral and vicious, ugly and erroneous, foolish 

 or insane. Has the mind simply to describe and 

 analyse, accept, and be content with such experi- 

 ence? Even the logician and the ;esthctician will 

 answer in the negative, will claim to judge their 

 facts as conforming to or contravening the laws of 

 truth and the ideals of art Still more decidedly 

 must the moralist and the student of religion s 

 answer. Religion, then, is not completely studied 

 when it is only studied historically. Hence it 

 must be dealt with by other sciences or disciplines 

 than those which are merely historical. What 

 these are, and how they are related to religion, 

 the writer has elsewhere endeavoured to show. 



All the particular theological sciences or disci 

 plines treat of particular aspects of religion or of 

 religion in particular ways. Their relationships to 

 one another can only be determined by their rela- 

 tionship to it. They can only l>e uniiied and co- 

 ordinated in a truly organic manner by their due 

 reference to it. When religion is studied not 

 merely in particular aspects and ways, but in ite 

 unity and entirety, with a view to its comprehen- 

 sion in its essence and all essential relations, it i- 

 the object of the Philosophy of Religion. Although 

 a distinct and essential department of philosophy, 

 and the highest and most comprehensive theological 

 science, the philosophy of religion could only appeal 

 in an independent and appropriate form when both 

 philosophy and theology were highly developed. 

 It is, therefore, of comparatively recent origin, and 

 indeed hits Ix-cn chiclly cultivated in (ienuany 

 during the 19th century. 



The Hibbrrt Lecture* of Max-Muller, Rctiouf, Kuenen, 

 Rhys Davids, Syoe, and Khys; Max Miillcr's Natural 

 nm and Phyrical Religion; Tide's Outlinet of the 

 .'/ i:f Rrluiion. and art. 'Religions' in Eney. Brit.; 

 De La Samwaye's Lekrbuch drr fieliffionifieickieJite; A. 

 Lang's Mirth, Ritual, and Religion . Reville's Relitiiont 

 de 1'ruplet non-eivilute*, Ac., treat of the history of 

 n-IU'imi. Alliutt's Piynholoiiy am/ Tln<J<*iii. Newman 

 Smyth's /.Y/K/I..IM Feeling, Brinton'i Religiout Senti- 

 D. QfMBlwf Thompson's Reliffiotu Xentimmtt of 

 the Human Miml. Happcl's Anlaye det Uenichen rtir 

 Jt'li'iion, and Ulrici's tint! im-l Menteh deal with the 

 psychology of religion. There are two valuable works 

 on the history of the philosophy of religion Pfleidorer'a 

 (trans, by Stewart and Menzies) and 1'iinjcr'n (trans, in 

 part by H us tic) ; also treatises on Rrtitriontphilotopki* by 

 Hegel, Krausc, Ohlert, Tautc. Apelt, Stuck), llartmann, 

 TeichmflUcr, and Kauwenhoff. Of works in English, 



