THE RELATION OF SEMITICS TO RELIGION 73 



turn for assistance to the etymology of the term by which it is ex- 

 pressed. In this instance, however, we look in vain to the Latin lexi- 

 con. The word connotes for us something quite different from that 

 which it suggested to the Romans, who did not agree among them- 

 selves as to its meaning. Cicero in his De Natura Deorum connected 

 religio with relegere, and says "those are said to be religious who 

 diligently recur to, and, as it were, repeat all those things which 

 pertain to the worship of the gods." But others, followed by the 

 great church father, Augustine, connect the word with religare, 

 to bind back, or firmly; thus rooting it essentially in a sense of obli- 

 gation. If we come down to more modern times, we find that philo- 

 sophers and theologians, in discussing religion, are divided into 

 three classes: those who seek its explanation in the intellect alone, 

 who make it purely a matter of thought, as Hegel; or of belief, as 

 Jacobi; or of intuitively perceived truths, as Schelling. Those who 

 would make it a matter of belief only exclude reason or make it 

 antagonistic to belief, thus making of the human mind the proverbial 

 house that is divided against itself. As for intuitive knowledge, that, 

 I think, finds little support from present-day philosophy. A second 

 class declares that religion has its fons et origo in the feelings alone. 

 It grows out of a sense of dependence. This is doubtless an important 

 source, but the old maxim Ex nihilo nihil fit is an immediate stay to 

 this conclusion. There can be no feeling where nothing but feeling is 

 involved. The case seems to be no better with the third class, who 

 derive it neither from the intellect nor from the feelings, but from 

 the conscience. Conscience is not an independent, separate, faculty, 

 wholly dissociated from intellect and feeling. On the contrary, it 

 presupposes both. The common and fundamental defect of all these 

 views of religion is that they limit it to a single sphere, whereas it 

 operates within and issues out of them all. The mind of man is not 

 made up of a series of bulk-head compartments. Any adequate view 

 of religion must, therefore, take cognizance of all the factors supplied 

 by these different sources. We would, consequently, define religion 

 as man's reasoned thought of the world-order of which he forms a 

 part, the feelings produced in him by this thought, and the deliberate 

 conduct in which it issues. This definition is comprehensive, suffi- 

 ciently apt, and adequate. I may indicate this by quoting two or 

 three definitions of prominent thinkers, all of which seem to me 

 defective. Herbert Spencer defines religion as " A feeling of wonder 

 in the presence of the unknown." Feeling is everything, and even 

 that is limited to the feeling of wonder. Test that by your thought 

 of Jesus, or of Paul. Were they simply wonderers? Newman, in his 

 Grammar of Assent, says, " Religion is the knowledge of God, of his 

 will, and of our duties toward him." Here the definition, taken 

 explicitly, makes knowledge everything. Martineau, in A Study of 



