LECTURE XI.

THE MATERIALS FOR THE STUDY OF NATURAL

RELIGION.

Language, Myth, Customs and Laws, Sacred Books.

AVING first determined by means of definition

the exact limits of Natural Religion, and having afterwards explained the reasons why the Historical Method seems to be the most advantageous for a truly scientific treatment of the religions of the world, we have now to find out what materials there are accessible to us from which to study the growth and decay of Natural Religion in the widest sense of the word.

These materials may be divided into four classes. First comes language, which in its continuous growth leads us back to the earliest periods of thought, or, at all events, to periods which cannot be reached by any other kind of evidence.

The second class is formed by what it is the fashion to call mythology, which, as I shall show, is really an inevitable phase in the development of language and thought.

The third class of evidence comprises religious customs and laws, which may be studied either in historical documents, or by actual observation of such

customs and laws as are still prevalent among civilised as well as uncivilised races.

The fourth class consists of the Sacred Books of the great religions of the world.

Language as Evidence.

If, as I hope to show, every word was originally a deed, was, in fact, a creative act, calling into life a concept which did not exist before, it will sound less surprising that it is possible to discover in words, taken by themselves, a record of the most primitive thoughts of mankind. It is true that a dictionary by itself conveys no meaning, and that it is only in a sentence that words become significant. But we know now that originally every word was a sentence. When a man said sar-it, river, he really said, 'running (sar) here (it)'; when he said dar-u, tree, he said, 'splitting (dar) here (u).' But men who called their trees splitting here,' or what is split, must have been men who had learnt to use trees for certain purposes, and who probably possessed some tools, however rude, to help them in carrying out their work. Men who called their horse a quick runner, as-va, equus, iππоs, must have been men to whom the horse had become useful as a runner, for there were many wild animals quicker than the horse, though they were not even singled out for a name, but were comprehended under the general term of wild animals.

You will see now how, if we can but find an entrance into the ancient workshop of language, we can still listen there to the earliest thoughts of man. But where is that workshop?

In order to answer that question, I shall have to

devote some of my next lectures to giving you a short account of the discoveries made by the students of the Science of Language. That science has opened before us a new world, and it will be necessary for me to place before you a map of that new world, though in the broadest outline only, in order that you may be able to watch the earliest migrations, not only of language, but of thought, of myth, of religion, and of law and custom.

Survey of Languages. Aryan Family.

Let us begin with Europe, and in Europe with England1.

English.

Have you ever asked yourselves what it means that we speak English, what a language is, what the English language is, where it sprang up or how it was made, and how it came to be spoken in these distant isles, and from thence again over nearly the whole civilised world?

Nothing seems to me so wonderful as the power which man possesses of ceasing to wonder at what is most wonderful. It has been said with great truth that a sign or wonder can never exist twice, for when it happened the second time we should call it quite natural, and cease to wonder at it. Some philosophers go even further and maintain that a sign or wonder ceases to exist the moment it does exist, because whenever it exists, there must have been a sufficient

1 I have left here this short survey of languages, which I found it necessary to give in my first course of lectures, in order to avoid the necessity of explaining again and again the names and the relationship of the languages in which the religions of the world found their expression. Readers who require fuller information, may consult my Science of Language, 1891.

reason for it, and whatever has a sufficient reason, ceases to be wonderful. Well, whatever the reason may be, we certainly all of us seem to have acquired what Orientals consider a proof of the highest breeding, namely to wonder at nothing, to be surprised by nothing, the old Nil admirari.

Here we find ourselves in a small island, adjacent to what is a mere promontory of the vast Asiatic continent. And in this small island which we call Great Britain, and in this mere promontory which we call the Continent of Europe, we speak a language which is to all intents and purposes the same as that which is spoken in Ceylon, an island adjacent to the southern promontory of the same Asiatic continent, called the Dekhan or Southern India.

This discovery of the unity of language in India and England is only about a hundred years old, and when it was first announced, it startled some of the most learned and judicious men to that extent that Dugald Stewart, for instance, declared it was an utter impossibility, and that Sanskrit must be an invention of those arch-deceivers, the Brahmans, who wanted to make themselves as good as ourselves, and as old as ourselves; nay, a great deal better and a great deal older too.

We have recovered from that surprise, and we find now at the beginning of most Latin and Greek grammars a few paragraphs about the Indo-European or Aryan family of speech, and a statement that much may be learnt from Sanskrit, the sacred language of the inhabitants of India, as to the antecedents of our own language, and as to how Latin and Greek became what they are.

But there are still greater miracles in English such as we find it spoken at the present day, if only we had eyes to see and ears to hear them. English is said to consist of 250,000 words, and most of these words are capable of ever so many changes which we call declension, conjugation, degrees of comparison, composition, and all the rest. That is to say, there is ready made for every one of us an instrument with at least several millions of keys on which we play, as if it were a pianoforte with ninety-six keys.

When uncivilised people hear an organ for the first time, they generally feel a curiosity to open it, to see how it acts, and what it is made of. But this gigantic organ which we call our language, we never try to open, we never ask how it was made or who made it. No, we take it for granted or given, and we think we may thump and hammer on it to our heart's content, trusting that it will always remain in tune.

Veda, otda.

But though the relationship between the languages of India, Persia, Armenia, Greek, Latin, Celtic, Slavonic, and Teutonic has now become part and parcel of the general stock of knowledge, it is seldom realised how close that relationship really is. It is known that the roots of all these languages are the same, that their grammatical articulation is the same, that a number of important words, such as the numerals, names for father, mother, sky, sun and moon, horse and cow, are the same. But it was only a study of Sanskrit, and of the most ancient, the Vedic Sanskrit, which enabled scholars to discover that