400 THE GERMAN PASS1ON-PLA Y 



Dionysian tragedy ; it is not of significance whether the 

 religion be that of Olympia and Hades, or of the 

 mediaeval Heaven and Hell. The outward forms have 

 indeed changed, but the inner spirit is the same. In 

 both cases an immortal art was evolved by the inspira- 

 tion of a great popular religion ; and those who term the 

 Middle Ages ' dark ages,' only demonstrate that in 

 their ignorance they are neglecting as great a factor of 

 culture as Hellenism itself. They are thrusting aside 

 in blind prejudice a large portion of the birthright which 

 man of the centuries past has won for man of the 

 centuries to come. That the Kenascence should have 

 taught men to understand Greek thought was wholly 

 gain, that it should have caused them to depise the 

 Middle Ages was wholly loss. We, to-day, have surely 

 confidence enough in our emancipation from superstition 

 to strive to appreciate both. 1 We are no more likely 

 to worship again the gods of the Middle Ages, than to 

 worship the gods of Greece. 



The science of comparative religion has a task 

 beyond that of comparing the various religious institu- 

 tions which have arisen among different races subject 

 to different environments. It has to deal with the 

 changing characters of the same religion as the people 

 who profess it develop ; it has to deal with the same 

 religion as it is differently moulded by different races. 

 This is not merely a study of churches, of councils, and 



1 Why should the schoolboy of to-day know the terms for all parts of the 

 Homeric ship, but be ignorant of those for the parts of a Gothic cathedral ? 

 Why should a statue of Athene be enriched by his knowledge of the details of 

 her worship, but a picture of the Virgin be unhallowed by a knowledge of the 

 poetry of her processions, offices, and hymns ? 



