RELIGION AND THE OTHER SCIENCES 269 



of which is to be found in psychical motives and in historical sur- 

 roundings, even as they are found in the corresponding parts of 

 religions other than the Christian religion. Therefore the historical 

 comparison of religions takes us away from an absolute dogmatic 

 positivism to a relative evolutionary manner of study, placing all 

 religions without exception under the laws of time progression and 

 under the causal connection of the law of cause and effect. The 

 isolation of religion therefore is no more. It is regarded as being 

 a part of other human historical affairs, and must yield to the test of a 

 thorough unhindered research. The value of the Christian religion 

 can never suffer in the view of a reasonable man, when it is not ac- 

 cepted in blind faith, but as the result of discriminating comparison. 

 As the evolutionary philosophy of religion uses the method of 

 science without exception in the case of all historical religions, so 

 also it does not shrink from taking up the question of the beginning 

 of religion, but believes that here also is found the key in the ana- 

 lytical, critical, and comparative method. And here is found the 

 assistance of the comparative study of languages, ethnology, and 

 paleontology. 



The' celebrated Sanscrit scholar, Max Mliller, sought in the com- 

 parative study of mythology to prove the etymological relation of 

 many of the Grecian gods and heroes with those of the mythology 

 of India and to trace the common origin of all these mythical beings 

 and legends in the personification of the movements of the heavenly 

 bodies, the thunder and lightning, the tempest and the rain. All 

 mythical belief in gods of the Indo-Germanic peoples seems to have 

 arisen out of a poetical view and dramatic personification of the 

 powers of nature. Suggestive as this hypothesis is, it is not by any 

 means sufficient to give us a complete explanation of the subject. 

 In fact, others have shown that primitive religion does not altogether 

 consist in mythical conceptions, but mainly in reverential actions, 

 sacrifices, sacraments, vows, and other similar cults, which have 

 very little to do with the atmospherical powers of nature, but rather 

 with the social life of primitive people. And when once the sight 

 was clearly directed to the social meaning of the religious rites, it was 

 then observed that even the earliest legends concerning the gods 

 were connected far more closely with the habits and customs of 

 early society than with the facts of nature. Tylor's celebrated book 

 concerning "Primitive Civilization" is written from this standpoint, 

 an epoch-making book, showing the original close connection of 

 religion with the entire civilization of humanity, with the views of 

 life and death, the social customs, the forms of law, their strivings in 

 art and science; a book with a large amount of information, brought 

 together from observation on all sides. In this channel are found all 

 the researches which to-day are classified under the name of Folk- 



