school. Far from it. I differ from it; I have no taste for it; I think it is often very misleading. But to compare the thoughts and imaginations of savages and civilised races, of the ancient Egyptians, for instance, and the modern Hottentots, has its value, if carried out by real scholars. We learn as much by contrast as by comparison, and the bold adventures of the Theoretic School have often proved a useful warning at all events to later explorers.

Historical School.

Let us now see how the Historical School goes to work in treating of the origin and growth of religion. It begins by collecting all the evidence that is accessible, and classifies it. First of all, religions are divided into those that have sacred books, and those that have not. Secondly, the religions which can be studied in books of recognised or canonical authority, are arranged genealogically.

Semitic Religions.

This

The New Testament is traced back to the Old, the Koran to both the New and Old Testaments. gives us one class of religions, the Semitic.

Aryan Religions.

Then, again, the sacred books of Buddhism and Gainism, of Zoroastrianism, and of Brâhmanism are classed together as Aryan, because they all draw their vital elements from one and the same ProtoAryan source. This gives us a second class of religions, the Aryan.

Chinese Religions.

Outside the pale of the Semitic and Aryan re

ligions, we have the two book-religions of China, the old national traditions collected by Confucius, and the moral and metaphysical system of Lao-zze. These two constitute a third class of Chinese religions.

The study of religions which have sacred books is in some respects easy, because we have in these books authoritative evidence on which our further reasonings and conclusions can be based. But, in other respects, the very existence of these books creates new difficulties, because, after all, religions do not live in books only, or even chiefly, but in human hearts; and when we have to deal with Vedas, and Avestas, and Tripitakas, Old and New Testaments, and Korans, we are often tempted into taking the book for the religion.

Still the study of book-religions, if we once have mastered their language, admits at all events of a critical and scholarlike study, while a study of native religions which have no books, no articles, no tests, no councils, no pope, withdraws itself almost entirely from a definitely scientific treatment. Any one who attempts to describe the religion of the ancient Greeks and Romans-I mean their real faith, not their mythology, their ceremonial, or their philosophy-knows the immense difficulty of such a task. And yet we have here a large literature, spread over many centuries, we know their language, we can even examine the ruins of their temples.

Religions without Books.

Think after that, how infinitely greater must be the difficulty of forming a right conception, say, of

the religion of the Red Indians, the Africans, the Australians. Their religions are probably as old as their languages, that is, as old as our own language; but we know nothing of their antecedents, nothing except the mere surface of to-day, and that immense surface explored in a few isolated spots only, here and there, and often by men utterly incapable of understanding the language and the thoughts of the people. The mistakes committed by students of these savage religions would fill volumes, as has been shown by Roskoff in his answer to Sir John Lubbock 1. And yet we are asked to believe by the followers of the Theoretic School that this mere surface detritus is in reality the granite that underlies all the religions of the ancient world, more primitive than the Old Testament, more intelligible than the Veda, more instructive than the mythological language of Greece and Rome. It may be so. The religious map of the world may show as violent convulsions as the geological map of the earth, and what is now on the surface may belong to the lowest azoic rocks. But this would have to be proved, and cannot be simply taken for granted. What I have ventured to say on several occasions to the enthusiastic believers in this contorted evolution of religious thought is, let us wait till we know a little more of Hottentots and Papuans; let us wait till we know at least their language, for otherwise we may go hopelessly wrong.

The Historical School, in the meantime, is carrying on its more modest work by publishing and translating the ancient records of the great religions of

1 See Roskoff. Das Religionswesen der rohesten Naturvölker, 1880.

the world, undisturbed by the sneers of those who do not find in the Sacred Books of the East what they, in their ignorance, expected. They can hardly be aware of what is thought of their daintiness. Would geologists turn up their noses at a kitchen-midden, because it did not contain their own favourite lollypops? And yet that is what some students of ancient religion seem inclined to do, when the ancient Rishis of the Veda are not as complacent as the primeval savages, and do not think exactly what synthetic philosophers think they ought to have thought.

Where there are no sacred texts to edit and to translate, the true disciples of the Historical Schoolmen such as, for instance, Castrén in Finland, Bishop Caldwell or Dr. Hahn in South Africa, Horatio Hale or Dr. Brinton in North America-do not shrink from the drudgery of learning the dialects spoken by savage tribes, gaining their confidence, and gathering at last from their lips some records of their popular traditions, their ceremonial customs, some prayers, it may be, and some confession of their ancient faith. But even with all these materials at his disposal, the historical student never forgets that these communications on religious subjects gathered from the lips even of a Cetwayo, can hardly be more trustworthy than a description of the doctrines of Christianity, gathered by the same Cetwayo during his stay in England from the lips of a London coal-heaver. He does not rush at once to the conclusion that in the Legends of the Eskimos any more than in the hymns of the Vedic Aryas, he can find the solution of all the riddles in the science of religion. He only says that we are not likely to find any evidence much

more trustworthy, and that therefore we are justified in deriving certain lessons from these materials.

And what is the chief lesson to be learnt from all these materials? It is this, that they contain certain words and concepts and imaginations which are as yet inexplicable, which seem simply irrational, and require for their full explanation antecedents which are lost to us; but that they contain also many words and concepts and imaginations which are perfectly intelligible, which presuppose no antecedents, and which, whatever their date may be, may be called primary in that sense.

However strange it may seem to us, if we simply follow the evidence placed before us, there can be little doubt that the perception of the Unknown or the Infinite was with many races as ancient as the perception of the Known or the Finite, that the two were, in fact, inseparable. To men who lived on an island, the ocean was the Unknown, the Infinite, and became in the end their God. To men who lived in valleys, the rivers that fed them and whose sources. were unapproachable, the mountains that protected them, and whose crests were inaccessible, the sky that overshadowed them, and whose power and beauty were incomprehensible, these were their unknown beings, their infinite beings, their bright and kind beings, what some of them called their Devas, the Bright, the same word which, after passing through many changes, still breathes in our own word, Divinity.

This unconscious process of theogony is historically attested, is intelligible, requires no antecedents, and may in that sense be called a primary process. How