FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTIONS AND METHODS 447 



any phenomena of a religious nature known to have belonged to the 

 former. A tomb of the early neolithic period is as infallible a sign of 

 the existence of religion as a church or a mosque or a synagogue 

 is of a particular type of religion in recent times. Nor is he warranted 

 in so defining religion as to put outside its limits any form which in 

 some of its manifestations has ceased to share characteristics com- 

 mon to all others, or to most of them. It is obvious that religion 

 cannot be defined in such a manner as to make Gautama of Kapi- 

 lavashtu or Jesus of Nazareth devoid of religion, or to render the 

 ecclesiastical organizations that imperfectly reflect their spirit and, 

 in compromise with hostile tendencies, too often have abandoned 

 their fundamental principles, more truly religious than they were 

 themselves. Buddhism especially furnishes a heavy obstacle in the 

 way of definition and a sore temptation to simplify the work by 

 excision. But what has been called the "religion of pity" cannot be 

 left out as a non-religious phenomenon unless it is possible to classify 

 it more satisfactorily as a system of philosophy, of ethics, or of 

 psychology. This does not seem feasible, as it clearly possesses, not 

 only on the emotional and practical sides, but also intellectually, 

 much that is common to the phenomena of man's life that are gen- 

 erally reckoned as religious. 



Among the definitions of religion that have been offered, some 

 deserve special consideration. The Latin word religio was derived 

 by Cicero * from re-legere, gather anew, re-collect, take up a thing to 

 give it fresh attention; by Lactantius 2 more correctly from re- 

 ligare, bind, attach. The idea of a bond is good; but a satisfactory 

 definition must indicate the character of this bond. Theologians who 

 identified with religion their own form of religion and looked upon 

 all other forms as false religions, having a different origin, being 

 counterfeits of the -true one, or having arisen through perversion of 

 a primitive revelation, could define religion only by describing their 

 own particular faith and practice. When, under the influence of the 

 development of the natural sciences, thinkers, especially in England, 

 began to demand that religion should be demonstrated as being in 

 harmony with reason, the defenders of dogma vied with its assailants 

 in maintaining the reasonableness of Christianity. The only difference 

 was that the Deists found it necessary to reject the miraculous super- 

 structure and prove Christianity to be the true exponent of the 

 natural theology of man. This position was still occupied, in the 

 main, by the great German philosophers at the end of the eighteenth 

 and the beginning of the nineteenth century, though their historical 

 horizon was wider and their philosophical insight deeper. Religion 

 was essentially considered from the standpoint of intellectual per- 

 ception, and even Hegel drew the line between Christianity as the 



1 De natura deorum, u, 28, 72. 2 Divinarum institutionum libri, iv, 28. 



