6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



man, are worthless in his future calling, is it not plain that your con- 

 servatism has become an artificial barrier which the progress of society- 

 must sooner or later sweep away ? Is it not the part of wisdom, how- 

 ever much pain it may cost, to sacrifice your traditional preferences 

 gracefully when you can direct the impending change, and not to wait 

 until the rush of the stream can not be controlled ? 



mFLUENCE OF THE ENVIRONMENT ON RELIGION. 



By Peofessob JAMES T. BIXBY, 



WHILE religious phenomena are in some respects singularly con- 

 stant, they are, nevertheless, as noted for their diversity. 

 While certain essential elements are common to almost all faiths, on 

 the other hand, every individual faith has something peculiar to itself. 

 It not only differs in some respects from other religions, but, as we 

 trace down its history, we find it varying from itself. 



The Hindoos, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Kelts, Teutons, and 

 Slavs, are shown by philological research to have come originally 

 from a single stock — the primitive Aryan. Their ancestors originally 

 dwelt together in a common home in the neighborhood of the Caspian 

 Sea ; and in this ancient time their religion was, probably, one and 

 the same faith, i. e., in substance. Yet how widely diverse have the 

 faiths of these nations come to be, in the four to five thousand years 

 since that ancient home was little by little deserted ! How has this 

 diversity come about ? What are the forces or influences that dif- 

 ferentiate religions ? We may divide them roughly into two kinds : 

 1. The external variables. 2. The internal variables. In this paper 

 I shall try to sketch the first ; i. e., those environing influences about 

 man, about a special race or nation, that tend to produce variation 

 in the course of the development of religion. 



1. I would mention the varied influences of outward nature. The 

 diverse phenomena of the world naturally diversify the direction and 

 character of faith. The religious capacities common to all men evolve 

 a stock of religious feeling which lies latent and fluent, as it were, 

 in the soul — like an electric charge in the battery — until some expe- 

 perience of the man occurs to elicit its discharge and give it direc- 

 tion. The form and path of faith are determined, in much, by the 

 kind of natural objects with which the spiritual faculty is most closely 

 or impressively brought in contact. Where the spirit of man is fre- 

 quently confronted with Nature in its power, beauty, or wrath — 

 where sky, sun, mountain, or river, is an important factor in the daily 

 experience and fortune — there arise naturally the corresponding forms 

 of religion — Nature- worship, fetichism, and pantheism. Where, how- 



