RELIGIONS IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 435 



in general, and of the history of religion in particular, which we 

 associate with the names of Lessing and Herder. That the history of 

 religion is the record of a development whose law is, first that which 

 is natural, then that which is spiritual, is an idea so familiar to us 

 that it is hard to realize that little more than a century ago it was 

 novel and revolutionary. 



The acceptance of a true conception of history and the achieve- 

 ment of a sound historical method would, however, of themselves 

 have availed little, apart from the vastly enlarged knowledge of 

 religions, both ancient and living, which has been gained in the last 

 hundred years. 1 At the beginning of the century the religions of 

 Greece and Rome, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam were the only 

 religions which were known through native sources or their own 

 sacred books, unless we make a partial exception of Chinese texts 

 translated by Jesuit missionaries. For Egypt and Babylonia, India 

 and Persia, the chief or only sources of information were the frag- 

 mentary and often conflicting reports in Greek and Latin authors. 

 Since then the religious literature of India, surpassing all others in 

 extent and variety, and covering a period of three thousand years, 

 has been brought to light. The Avesta, whose chief books were brought 

 to Europe in the eighteenth century, has been made intelligible by 

 the labors of three generations of scholars, and many later Zoroastrian 

 writings recovered. The Chinese classics and the sacred books of 

 Taoism have been repeatedly interpreted in the light both of native 

 comment and of Western philology. The decipherment of the 

 Egyptian hieroglyphic writing in the early nineteenth century was 

 followed by continuous excavation and discovery, the latest stages 

 of which have extended the historical horizon over distant centuries, 

 and promise to make the civilization and religion of the Old Empire 

 almost as well known as that of the New. In Assyria and Babylonia 

 civilizations not less ancient than that of Egypt have been brought 

 to light; and there also religious monuments and texts of the most 

 diverse kinds, representing perhaps four millenniums, are accumulated 

 with a rapidity that outruns the utmost activity of decipherers and 

 students. 



In the classical field the discovery and methodical use of remains 

 and monumental sources has done much to enlarge and correct the 

 notions formed from the literature alone. By this means only it has 

 proved possible to reconstruct, at least in broken outlines, the genuine 

 Roman religion, as distinct from the late syncretism which is repre- 

 sented by all the literary sources. Recent excavations, again, have 

 revealed the antiquity of a high Hellenic or Proto-Hellenic civiliza- 

 tion in the eastern Mediterranean basin, and of an active intercourse 



1 On the history of these discoveries, see Hardy, Archiv fiir Religionswissen- 

 schaft, iv, 97 ff. " 



