man alone, but the sun, the moon, the stars, all the lower animals, all trees and plants, rivers and lakes, many boulders and other separated rocks, even some hills and buttes which stand alone-in short, everything not made by human hands, which has an independent being, or can be individualized, possesses a spirit, or, more properly, a shade. To these shades some respect or consideration is due, but not equally to all. . . . The sun is held in great veneration, and many valuable sacrifices are made to it.'

Here then among the very lowest of human beings we see how some worship everything, while others worship nothing, and who shall say which of the two is the more truly religious?

Let us now look at the conception of religion, such as we find it among the most cultivated races of Europe, and we shall find among them the same divergence. Kant declares that to attempt to pleasè the Deity by acts which have no moral value, bý mere cultus, i.e. by external worship, is not religion, but simply superstition'. I need not quote authorities

1 'Alles, was, ausser dem guten Lebenswandel, der Mensch noch thun zu können vermeint, um Gott wohlgefällig zu werden, ist blosser Religionswahn und Afterdienst Gottes' (1. e. iv. 2, p. 205). "Ob der Andächtler seinen statutenmässigen Gang zur Kirche, oder ob er eine Wallfahrt nach den Heiligthümern in Loretto oder Palästina anstellt, ob er seine Gebetsformeln mit den Lippen, oder wie der Tibetaner (welcher glaubt, dass diese Wünsche, auch schriftlich anfgesetzt, wenn sie nur durch irgend Etwas, z. B. auf Flaggen geschrieben, durch den Wind, oder in einer Büchse eingeschlossen, als eine Schwungmaschine mit der Hand bewegt werden ihren Zweck ebenso gut erreichen) es durch ein Gebetrad an die himmlische Behörde bringt, oder was für ein Surrogat des moralischen Dienstes Gottes es auch immer sein mag, das ist Alles einerlei und von gleichen Werth' (p. 208).

on the other side who declare that a silent religion of the heart, or even an active religion in common life, is nothing without an external worship, without a priesthood, without ritual.

We might examine many more definitions of religion, and we should always find that they contain what certain persons thought that religion ought to be; but they are hardly ever wide enough to embrace all that has been called religion at different periods in the history of the world. That being so, the next step has generally been to declare that whatever is outside the pale of any one of these definitions, does not deserve to be called religion; but should be called superstition, or idolatry, or morality, or philosophy, or any other more or less offensive name. Kant would call much of what other people call religion, hallucination; Fichte would call Kant's own religion mere legality. Many people would qualify the brilliant services, whether carried on in Chinese temples or Roman Catholic cathedrals, as mere superstition; while the faith of the silent Australians, and the half-uttered convictions of Kant, would by others be classed together as not very far removed from atheism.

Definition of Schleiermacher (Dependence), and

of Hegel (Freedom).

I shall mention one more definition of religion, which in modern times has been rendered memorable and popular by Schleiermacher. According to him religion consists in our consciousness of absolute dependence on something which, though it determines us, we cannot determine in turn1. But here

1 This is, of course, a very imperfect account of Schleiermacher's

again another class of philosophers step in, declaring that feeling of dependence the very opposite of religion. There is a famous, though not very wise saying of Hegel, that if the consciousness of dependence constituted religion, the dog would possess most religion. On the contrary religion, according to Hegel, is or ought to be perfect freedom; for it is neither more nor less than the Divine Spirit becoming conscious of himself through the finite spirit.

Comte and Feuerbach.

From this point it required but another step, and that step was soon taken by Feuerbach in Germany, and by Comte in France, to make man himself, not only the subject, but also the object of religion and religious worship. We are told that man cannot know anything higher than man; that man therefore is the only true object of religious knowledge and worship, only not man as an individual, but man as a class. The generic concept of man, or the genius of humanity, is to be substantiated, and then humanity becomes at once both the priest and the deity.

Nothing can be more eloquent, and in some passages really more solemn and sublime than the religion of humanity, as preached by Comte and his disciples. Feuerbach, however, dissipates the last mystic halo which Comte had still left. Self-love,' he says, 'is a necessary, indestructible, universal law and principle, inseparable from every kind of love. Religion must and does confirm this on every page

view of religion, which became more and more perfect as he advanced in life. See on this point the excellent 'Life of Schleiermacher,' by W. Dilthey, 1870.

of her history. Wherever man tries to resist that human egoism, in the sense in which we explained it, whether in religion, philosophy, or politics, he sinks into pure nonsense and insanity; for the sense which forms the foundation of all human instincts, desires, and actions is the satisfaction of the human being, the satisfaction of human egoism1.'

Difficulty of Defining Religion.

Thus we see that each definition of religion, as soon as it is started, seems at once to provoke another which meets it by a flat denial. There seem to be almost as many definitions of religion as there are religions in the world, and there is almost the same hostility between those who maintain these different definitions of religion as there is between the believers in different religions. What, then, is to be done? Is it really impossible to give a definition of religion, that should be applicable to all that has ever been called religion, or by some similar name? I believe it is, and you will yourselves have perceived the reason why it is so. Religion is something which has passed, and is still passing through an historical evolution, and all we can do is to follow it up to its origin, and then to try to comprehend it in its later historical developments.

Specific Characteristic of Religion.

But though an adequate definition, or even an exhaustive description, of all that has ever been called religion is impossible, what is possible is to give some specific characteristic which distinguishes

the objects of religious consciousness from all other objects, and at the same time distinguishes our consciousness, as applied to religious objects, from our consciousness when dealing with other objects supplied to it by sense and reason.

Let it not be supposed, however, that there is a separate consciousness for religion. There is but one self and one consciousness, although that consciousness varies according to the objects to which it is applied. We distinguish between sense and reason, though even these two are in the highest sense different functions only of the same conscious self. In the same manner, when we speak of faith as a religious faculty in man, all that we can mean is our ordinary consciousness, so developed and modified as to enable us to take cognisance of religious objects. This is not meant as a new sense, by the side of the other senses, or as a new reason by the side of our ordinary reason, a new soul within the soul. It is simply the old consciousness applied to new objects, and reacted upon by them. To admit faith as a separate religious faculty, or a theistic instinct, in order to explain religion as a fact, such as we find it everywhere, would be like admitting a vital force in order to explain life; it would be a mere playing with words or trifling with truth. Such explanations may have answered formerly, but at present the battle has advanced too far for any peace to be concluded on such terms.

Religion, as a Subjective Faculty for the

Apprehension of the Infinite.

In a course of introductory lectures on the Science of Religion, delivered at the Royal Institution in