450 HISTORY OF RELIGION 



upon him, operating within him, and redeeming him from desire, 

 re-birth, and existence itself. It limits the term to certain phenomena 

 of man's life, without denying the existence of the elements out of 

 which religion has developed in the lower forms of animal life, or 

 assuming to indicate the point in the process of evolution where a 

 being may appropriately be designated man, or attempting to decide 

 whether any individual of the species man is now or ever has been 

 without religion. 



The history of religion as thus defined, though a comparatively 

 young discipline, has already been able to occupy and maintain 

 some exceedingly important positions. There are numerous pro- 

 blems left for future generations to solve. But it may be doubted 

 whether any of them will ever be of such fundamental importance or 

 have such a revolutionary effect upon long-cherished beliefs as the 

 conceptions now fairly established by historical theology. 



The first of these fundamental conceptions is that all religion has 

 the same origin. The distinction once made between natural ad 

 revealed religion can no longer be maintained. The claim to be based 

 upon a special revelation is a common characteristic of practically 

 all forms of religion. Every god reveals his will to his worshipers. 

 The thought and the will of the particular divinity may be proclaimed 

 by living voices only, or be written down and preserved in sacred 

 books for the guidance of coming generations; but the written 

 oracles are not essentially different from the spoken, and the sacred 

 writings of one historic religion have no characteristics indicating 

 for them a different origin from that of the holy books of any other 

 religion. However strongly convinced Jews, Christians, Brahmins, 

 Buddhists, Mazdayasnians, Mandaeans, Muslims, and others may be 

 that their own sacred books have a character so different from all 

 writings for which similar claims have been made, and so superior to 

 them, that a common origin cannot be assumed, historical theology 

 has demonstrated that they all register the development of man's relig- 

 ious consciousness in different times and places, and are the products 

 of essentially the same mental processes. The history of every canon 

 of scriptures shows how impossible it is to draw the circle within 

 which the alleged special revelation is contained. The history of 

 every form of religion shows how naturally the human mind operates 

 with such conceptions as revelation and divine inspiration. It is 

 readily seen that the claims of infallibility naturally made for all 

 sacred writings are in every case without foundation. If, as is some- 

 times maintained, the originals of these writings were without errors, 

 while such are found in our present copies, the number and character 

 of these errors may seriously affect the value of the only texts to 

 which we have any access, while there is no means of verifying a 

 theory concerning the original copies which a priori lacks all plaus- 



