334 Science Religion and Reality 



religions may not claim either, if rightly understood, to be already 

 or at least to have the capacity of developing into a universal religion 

 adequate to the needs of modern civilisation. It is the purpose of 

 the present essay to discuss the qualifications of Christianity for 

 the discharge of this function. 



The ideal of a universal religion may be presented under two 

 distinct forms ; and, under each of these forms again, either after 

 a pictorial or after what we may call a philosophical fashion. The 

 two forms in question are perhaps best represented by the points of 

 view characteristic of Hinduism and of Christianity respectively, 

 and may be discriminated by the different attitudes taken up by 

 these two religious systems towards history. 



To certain minds there is a singular attraction in the belief that 

 there exists a secret tradition, handed on from age to age by adepts, 

 equipped with an occult knowledge of spiritual powers which 

 confers upon them the control of natural forces, who communicate 

 so much as they think fit of the mysteries in their possession to 

 different peoples at different periods under various symbols, the 

 inner significance whereof is nevertheless always one and the same. 

 This belief, sometimes entertained by scholars in the infancy of 

 historical and philological criticism, now exercises its influence only 

 over those who are, in this field at any rate, imperfectly educated ; 

 but among these it is the backbone of doctrines of the kind that, 

 passing under such names as Esoteric Buddhism, Theosophy, and 

 the like, appeal to widely spread prej udices by their parade of out- 

 of-the-way information, their comprehensive eclecticism, and their 

 claim to bestow extraordinary powers upon their votaries. It may, 

 however, serve as a pictorial representation of a faith which com- 

 mends itself to many who could not accept the hypothesis of a secret 

 doctrine, literally understood. To this faith Hinduism among the 

 great historic religions of the world is perhaps the nearest akin. 

 With its traditions of periodically repeated incarnations of the 

 Deity in the most diverse forms, its ready acceptance of any and 

 every local divinity or founder of a sect or ascetic devotee as a 

 manifestation of God, its tolerance of symbols and legends of all 

 kinds, however repulsive or even obscene, by the side of the most 

 exalted flights of world-renouncing mysticism, it could perhaps 

 more easily than any other faith develop, without loss of continuity 

 with its past, into a universal religion, which would see in every 

 creed a form, suited to some particular group or individual, of the 



