ORDINARY MEETING, Frervary 16, 1885. 
D. Howarp, Hsq., F.I.C., in THE CHAIR. 
The Minutes of the last Meeting were read and confirmed, and the fol- 
lowing Elections were announced :— 
Memper :—R. Tucker Pain, Esq., Woburn. 
AssocraTEs :—Rev. W. C. Barlow, B.A., London; D. W. Ferguson, Esq., 
Ceylon; Rev. S. C. Armour, M.A., Liverpool; M. A. Brants, Ph.D., 
Zutphen ; D. McLaren, Esq., J.P., London ; H. Whiteside Williams, Esq., 
F.G.S., Solva. 
The following paper was then read os Mr. H. Capman Jonzs, M.A., in 
the author’s unavoidable absence :— 
SOME THOUGHTS ON THE EVOLUTION OF 
RELIGIONS. By the Rev. W. R. Buacxert, M.A. 
HE Evolution of Religion is much too large a subject to 
be treated in a single paper. But a few stray thoughts 
on the Evolution of Religions may possibly be suggestive. 
1. First, let us clearly grasp the distinction here referred to 
between religions and religion. Religions are the divers ideas 
and practices adopted by different peoples in respect of the 
Being or Beings whom they acknowledge as having super- 
natural influence over them. But religion, in the general 
sense, is something independent of all historical religions. 
Professor Max Miiller remarks,—“ If we say that it is religion 
which distinguishes man from ‘the animal, we do not mean 
the Christian or the Jewish religion, but we mean a mental 
faculty ; that faculty which, independently of—nay, in spite 
of—sense and reason, enables man to apprehend the Infinite 
under different names and under varying disguises. With- 
out that faculty no religion, not even the lowest worship of 
stocks and stones, would be possible.’”’* 
* Lectures on Scrence of Religion, p. 17. 
