RELIGION 491 BKLIGION or stages. An adequate proof of this view would necessarily dislodge and de- stroy a number of current hypotheses. The theories regarding the psycho- log^ical origin and the essence of religion are numerous and divergent. It was common among the atheists of the 18th century to speak of religion as the in- vention of individuals desirous of deceiv- ing their fellowmen in order to further their own selfish and ambitious views. Feuerbach, Lange, Spencer, and others account for its appearance by imagina- tion, illusion, or the misinterpretation of ordinary or exceptional phenomena. Some zealous supernaturalists have ar- gued that it must have originated in a primitive revelation. It may be referred exclusively to the intellectual province of human nature. This mistake, however, is too gross to have been often com- mitted, and is sufficiently refuted by the obvious consideration that the measure of religion is not the measure of in- telligence or of knowledge. Hegel did not, as is often said, fall into the error of identifying religion v/ith thought, but only emphasized strongly the importance of thought in religion. Peschel regards the principle of causality, and Max Miiller the perception of the infinite, as the roots of religion. And it may well be admitted that without both of these intellectual principles religion would be impossible. But are they more than merely conditions of its appearance? The origin of religion is, of course, re- ferred to intellect by those who hold that God is known intuitively, perceived directly, apprehended without medium; but both psychology and history, both internal analysis and external observa- tion seem to disprove this hypothesis. Religion has often been resolved into feeling or sentiment. Thus Lucretius, Hobbes, and Strauss have traced it mainly to fear; the followers of Ritschl to a desire to secure life and its goods amidst the uncertainties and evils of earth; the disciples of Schlei- ermacher to a feeling of absolute de- pendence, of pure and entire passive- ness; and others — e.g., Brinton and Newman Smyth — to the religious feeling regarded either as a distinct primary feeling or a peculiar compound feeling. Kant represented religion as essentially a sanction for duty, and Matthew Arnold has defined it as "morality touched by emotion," "ethics heightened, enkindled, lit up by feelings." This great diver- sity of views of itself indicates what in- vestigation is found to confirm — viz., that religion is a vast and complex thing, an inexhaustible field for psycho- logical study. Almost all the views re- ferred to have some truth in them, and most of them are only false in so far as they assume themselves to be exclusively true. The whole nature of man ha.? been formed for religion, and is en- gaged and exercised in religion. Every principle of that nature which has been singled out as the root of religion has really contributed to its rise and de- velopment. The study of religion as a process of mind, and of the factors which condition and determine its de- velopment, is the special task of the psy- chology of religion, a department of re- search to which many contributions have been made since Hume initiated it in his "Natural History of Religion" (17.59) by showing the importance of the dis- tinction between the causes and the reasons of religion. A religion is a group or whole of re- ligious phenomena — of religious beliefs, practices, and institutions — so closely connected with one another as to be thereby differentiated from those of any other religion. Each religion has had a history and its rise and spread, forma- tion and transformations, as a religion can only be truly traced by being his- torically traced. Also religions are his- torically connected, are related to one another, and have influenced one an- other, in ways which may be discovered, and can only be discovered, by historical research. Hence the history of reli- gions is also the history of religion, not an aggregation of the histories of particular religions, but a truly general history. Like the histories of art, industry, science, and society in gen- eral, it is found on examination to have been a process of development in which each stage of religion has proceeded gradually from antecedent factors and conditions. The precise nature of the development can only be ascertained by investigation of the history itself. No hypothesis of development should be assumed as a pre-supposition of such investigation. Naturalistic apriorisni is as illegitimate in historical inquiry as theological or metaphysical aprior- ism. The history of religion is not only of great importance in itself, but indispensable to the right under- standing of general history, of the his- tory of art, of philosophy, etc. It has been studied with more zeal and success during the 19th century than in all the preceding ages. The history of religious beliefs is, of course, only a part of the history of religions. It is, however, dis- tinguishable, though inseparable, from it, and is often and conveniently desig- nated Comparative Theology. It com- Krehends comparative mythology and the istory of doctrines, myths being beliefs
