been used promiscuously. By religion we should always understand the subject itself, by theology the study or science of that subject. This terminology, so far as the word theology is concerned, has prevailed ever since the time of Abelard, and there seems to be no reason for changing it. The Greek word theologos was used originally in a different sense. Thus Homer and Hesiod were called theologi (Herodotus, ii. 53), not in the modern sense of theologians, but as conversant with the origin and history of the gods. Hesiod's Theogony might have been called his Theology, or, at all events, a part of it, and that name is applied to similar works, such as the Theology of Thamyris, and of Orpheus, who is specially called & coλóyos by the Neo-platonists 1. Plato and Aristotle used theology in the sense of doctrine concerning Deity and Divine things, λόγοι περὶ τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ περὶ τῶν θεῶν. In Latin theologia was taken by Varro in the sense of what we call religion, there being according to him three kinds of theology, the mythical, the physical, and the civil. The mythical theology contained the fables about the gods, and many things, we are told, contrary to the dignity of immortal beings. The physical theology was described by him as beyond the capacity of the vulgar, while he considered the civil theology, the received religion of Rome, as best for a good citizen to believe. In Christian phraseology theologos meets us first as the name of the author of the Apocalypse, John the Divine, or the theologos. This name, however, we are told, was given to him, not simply because he was 1 See Gruppe, Die griechischen Culte, pp. 632-637. what we call a theologian, but because he maintained the divinity of the Logos. In the third and fourth centuries theologos is said to have meant usually one who defended that doctrine. Later, and particularly during the middle ages, theology came to mean religious doctrine in general, as studied by theologians or priests, and Abelard's Theologia Christiana was meant to represent what was afterwards called Summa theologiae, a body of systematical knowledge concerning Christian religion 1. Dogmatic and Practical Religion. The fashion which prevailed for some time, particularly in Germany, of using religion in the sense of practical and moral religion, while reserving theology as a name of dogmatic religion, is objectionable, and can only create confusion. We may distinguish between dogmatic and practical religion, and we may equally distinguish between dogmatic and practical theology. But as a theologian is now always used in the sense of a man who studies religion professionally or who belongs to the faculty of theology, it will be best to reserve theology as a name of this study. A mere believer in the dogmas of any religion is not yet a theologian. I therefore propose to retain religion in its general sense, comprising both dogmatic and practical religion, and reserve theology as the name for a scientific study of both. This will prevent all misunderstanding, unless we prefer to drop the name of theology altogether, and replace it by the name of the Science of Religion. 1 See Flint. in Encyclop. Brit. s.v. Theology. Comparative Theology. It is likewise a mere abuse of technical terms to speak of Comparative Religion. There is religion and there is a science of religion, just as there is language and a science of language. But no one would speak of Comparative Language; neither ought we to speak of Comparative Religion. It is different with mythology. Mythology may be used, not only for a collection of myths, but likewise for a scientific treatment of them, and in the latter sense therefore it would be correct to speak of Comparative Mythology. We have thus far distinguished between: Religion, dogmatic and practical, and To some philosophers, and theologians also, such a division between practical and dogmatic religion seems objectionable, nay, impossible, because they maintain that morality cannot possibly exist without some belief in a divine, or, at least, a rational government of the world, and that dogma again would be useless, unless it became the motive of practical morality. This may be true, but we need not enter into that question at present, for by simply qualifying religion as either dogmatic or practical, we only distinguish, we do not separate; and without committing ourselves as yet to any opinion as to whether morality can exist without dogma or dogma without morality, we do no more by our nomenclature than admit the existence of a common element in both. Schleiermacher's Definition of Religion. Some philosophers, however, and particularly Schleiermacher, claim the right of using religion in a still higher sense. They deny that religion is either dogmatic or moral; they deny also that a combination of dogma and morality would give us religion. They point out that when we say that a man is without religion, we do not mean simply that he does not believe in Judaism, Christianity, or any other form of faith, or declines to submit to their moral codes. We mean really that he is without any religious sentiment. Schleiermacher explains religious sentiment as being the immediate consciousness that all that seems finite is infinite, that all that seems temporal is eternal. To seek and find what is infinite and eternal in all that lives and moves, in all changes and chances, in all doing and suffering, in fact by an immediate sentiment to have and know life itself as the infinite and eternal life, that,' he says, 'is religion.''From that point of view, if once reached, all events become real miracles, all miracles become real events; all experience becomes revelation, all revelation experience.'—' If we do not see our own miracles around us, if we do not perceive within us our own revelations, if our soul does not yearn to draw in the beauty of the whole world and to be pervaded by its spirit; if in the highest moments of our life we do not feel ourselves impelled by the divine spirit and speaking and acting from our own holy inspiration, if we do not at least feel all that we feel as an immediate influence of the universe, and yet discover in it something that is our own, that cannot be imitated, but can prove its pure origin within ourselves, we have no religion.' We shall have to consider this meaning of religion when we come to examine the Upanishads, the Ve dânta philosophy, the poetry of the Sufis, and the speculations of the mediaeval mystics; but it seems to me that it would be better if a different name could be assigned to what may be the highest height which religion can reach, but is nevertheless a complete transfiguration rather of human nature than a system of doctrines about the Divine, and a code of precepts inspired by our belief in the Divine. In German it is called Religiosität; in English religiousness or devotion might be used in the same sense. Religion, either belief or body of doctrines. We have still one remark to make with regard to the ordinary use of the word 'religion,' before we can feel ourselves properly equipped for grappling with the great historical definitions of religion which have to be examined. Like many terms of the same character, religion can be used either for our own intellectual possession of theoretic dogmas and moral principles, or as a name of a body of doctrines and precepts collected by authority, chiefly for the purpose of teaching these doctrines and practices. Thus we may say that a person has changed the Jewish for the Christian religion, that is to say, that he has changed his own religious convictions. But we may also say that a person is studying the Buddhist religion, either by reading the sacred books of the Buddhists or by watching the life of the Buddhists in Ceylon or China, without allowing these studies to exercise the least effect on his own convictions. This ambiguity can hardly be avoided, and we have to make allowance for it in all branches of knowledge. We speak of logic, meaning either the laws of thought as E |