84 THOUGHTS t)N NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 



idea, if not the word, however faint and elusive, may 

 be said to exist. This principle of love is a later 

 and more cultured development of earlier religious 

 thought, found embedded, in the written religions, 

 in a setting of more primitive ideas. 



Max Muller has given us definitions, etymological, 

 historical, dogmatic, and otherwise of the word 

 religion ; but what is wanted to be known is, what 

 is religion ? Writing without authority, and purely 

 from the point of view of a student, who has given 

 thought and study to this vast and interesting 

 subject, it appears that *religion may be said to be 

 love, in activity. The higher written religions seem 

 to sanction this definition, and one, at least, of those 

 religions was written with a view to promoting the 

 activity of love ; and informs us that it is the supreme 

 test by which a man may know if he is truly religi- 

 ous ; and it also forms an important part of Buddhist 

 teaching. The written religions are comparatively 

 modern ; for countless ages before their production, 

 men ancj women lived,t loved, mated, and reared in 

 love their offspring, must have done so or the race 

 would have perished, and were in the doing so (in spite 

 of many shortcomings) truly and beautifully religious; 

 and that as a necessity of their being. They could 



* Not so much historically and comparatively, as essentially, and 

 apart from the more primitive ideas. 



t In spite of many hindrances, and quaint customs, referred to, and 

 not alluded to, in Lord Avebury's interesting book The Origin oj 

 Civilization, and other works. Love gradually triumphed and it 

 is hoped will continue to triumph over all. The evolution of sex 

 (combined with other aids) is the great instrument by which Nature 

 has gradually and almost imperceptibly wrought this great work. 



