THE HARTFORD-LAMSON LECTURES ON
THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD

AN INTRODUCTION

TO THE STUDY OF

COMPARATIVE RELIGION

BY

FRANK BYRON JEVONS

PRINCIPAL OF BISHOP HATFIELD'S HALL, DURHAM UNIVERSITY, DURHAM, ENGLAND

New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1920

All rights reserved

COPYRIGHT, 1908,
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

Set up and electrotyped. Published October, 1908.

Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing—Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.

NOTE

The Hartford-Lamson Lectures on "The Religions of the World" are delivered at Hartford Theological Seminary in connection with the Lamson Fund, which was established by a group of friends in honor of the late Charles M. Lamson, D.D., sometime President of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, to assist in preparing students for the foreign missionary field. The Lectures are designed primarily to give to such students a good knowledge of the religious history, beliefs, and customs of the peoples among whom they expect to labor. As they are delivered by scholars of the first rank, who are authorities in their respective fields, it is expected that in published form they will prove to be of value to students generally.

CONTENTS

ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

The use of any science lies in its application to practical purposes. For Christianity, the use of the science of religion consists in applying it to show that Christianity is the highest manifestation of the religious spirit. To make this use of the science of religion, we must fully and frankly accept the facts it furnishes, and must recognise that others are at liberty to use them for any opposite purpose. But we must also insist that the science of religion is limited to the establishment of facts and is excluded from passing judgment on the religious value of those facts. The science of religion as a historical science is concerned with the chronological order, and not with the religious value, of its facts; and the order of those facts does not determine their value any more in the case of religion than in the case of literature or art. But if their value is a question on which the science refuses to enter, it does not follow that the question is one which does not admit of a truthful answer: science has no monopoly of truth. The value of anything always implies a reference to the future: to be of value a thing must be of use for some purpose, and what is purposed is in the future. Things have value, or have not, according as they are useful or not for our purposes. The conviction that we can attain our purposes and ideals, the conviction without which we should not even attempt to attain them is faith; and it is in faith and by faith that the man of religion proposes to conquer the world. It is by faith in Christianity that the missionary undertakes to convert men to Christianity. The comparative value of different religions can only be ascertained by comparison of those religions; and the missionary, of all men, ought to know what is to be learnt from such comparison. It is sometimes supposed (wrongly) that to admit that all religions are comparable is to admit that all are identical; but, in truth, it is only because they differ that it is possible to compare them. For the purpose of comparison both the differences and the resemblances must be assumed to exist; and even for the purposes of the science of religion there is nothing to compel us to postulate a period in which either the differences or the resemblances were non-existent. But though there is nothing to compel us to assume that the lowest form in which religion is found was necessarily the earliest to exist, it is convenient for us to start from the lowest forms. For the practical purposes of the missionary it is desirable where possible to discover any points of resemblance or traits of connection between the lower form with which his hearers are familiar and the higher form to which he proposes to lead them. It is therefore proper for him and reasonable in itself to look upon the long history of religion as man's search for God, and to regard it as the function of the missionary to keep others in that search . . . 1-33

IMMORTALITY

The belief in immortality is more prominent, though less intimately bound up with religion, amongst uncivilised than it is amongst civilised peoples. In early times the fancy luxuriates, unchecked, on this as on other matters. It is late in the history of religion that the immortality of the soul is found to be postulated alike by morality and religion. The belief that the soul exists after death doubtless manifested itself first in the fact that men dream of those who have died. But, were there no desire to believe, it may be doubted whether the belief would survive, or even originate. The belief originates in desire, in longing for one loved and lost; and dreams are not the cause of that desire, though they are one region in which it manifests itself, or rather one mode of its manifestation. The desire is for continued communion; and its gratification is found in a spiritual communion. Such communion also is believed to unite worshippers both with one another and with their God. Where death is regarded as a disruption of communion between the living and the departed, death is regarded as unnatural, as a violation of the original design of things, which calls for explanation; and the explanation is provided in myths which account for it by showing that the origin of death was due to accident or mistake. At first, it is felt that the mistake cannot be one without remedy: the deceased is invited "to come to us again." If he does not return in his old body, then he is believed to reappear in some new-born child. Or the doctrine of rebirth may be satisfied by the belief that the soul is reincarnated in animal form. This belief is specially likely to grow up where totem ancestors are believed to manifest themselves in the shape of some animal. Belief in such animal reincarnation has, in its origin, however, no connection with any theory that transmigration from a human to an animal form is a punishment. Up to this point in the evolution of the belief in immortality, the belief in another world than this does not show itself. Even when ancestor-worship begins to grow up, the ancestors' field of operations is in this world, rather than in the next. But the fact that their aid and protection can be invoked by the community tends to elevate them to the level of the god or gods of the community. This tendency, however, may be defeated, as it was in Judæa, where the religious sentiment will not permit the difference between God and man to be blurred. Where the fact that the dead do not return establishes itself as incontrovertible, the belief grows up that as the dead continue to exist, it is in another world that their existence must continue. At first they are conceived to continue to be as they are remembered to have been in this life. Later the idea grows up that they are punished or rewarded there, according as they have been bad or good here; according as they have or have not in this life sought communion with the true God. This belief thus differs entirely from the earlier belief, e.g. as it is found amongst the Eskimo, that it is in this world the spirits of the departed reappear, and that their continued existence is unaffected by considerations of morality or religion. It is, however, not merely the belief in the next world that may come to be sanctified by religion and moralised. The belief in reincarnation in animal form may come to be employed in the service of religion and morality, as it is in Buddhism. There, however, what was originally the transmigration of souls was transformed by Gotama into the transmigration of character; and the very existence of the individual soul, whether before death or after, was held to be an illusion and a deception. This tenet pushes the doctrine of self-sacrifice, which is essential both to religion and to morality, to an extreme which is fatal in logic to morality and religion alike: communion between man and God—the indispensable presupposition of both religion and morals—is impossible, if the very existence of man is illusory. The message of the missionary will be that by Christianity self-sacrifice is shown to be the condition of morality, the essence of communion with God and the way to life eternal . . . 34-69

MAGIC

A view sometime held was that magic is religion, and religion magic. With equal reason, or want of reason, it might be held that magic was science, and science magic. Even if we correct the definition, and say that to us magic appears, in one aspect, as a spurious system of science; and, in another, as a spurious system of religion; we still have to note that, for those who believed in it, it could not have been a spurious system, whether of science or religion. Primitive man acts on the assumption that he can produce like by means of like; and about that assumption there is no "magic" of any kind. It is only when an effect thus produced is a thing not commonly done and not generally approved of, that it is regarded as magic; and it is magic, because not every one knows how to do it, or not every one has the power to do it, or not every one cares to do it. About this belief, so long as every one entertains it, there is nothing spurious. When however it begins to be suspected that the magician has not the power to do what he professes, his profession tends to become fraudulent and his belief spurious. On the other hand, a thing commonly done and generally approved of is not regarded as magical merely because the effect resembles the cause, and like is in this instance produced by like. Magic is a term of evil connotation; and the practice of using like to produce like is condemned when and because it is employed for anti-social purposes. Such practices are resented by the society, amongst whom and on whom they are employed; and they are offensive to the God who looks after the interests of the community. In fine, the object and purpose of the practice determines the attitude of the community towards the practice: if the object is anti-social, the practice is nefarious; and the witch, if "smelled out," is killed. The person who is willing to undertake such nefarious proceedings comes to be credited with a nefarious personality, that is to say, with both the power and the will to do what ordinary, decent members of the community could not and would not do: personal power comes to be the most important, because the most mysterious, characteristic of the man believed to be a magician. If we turn to things, such as rain-making, which are socially beneficial, we find a similar growth in the belief that some men have extraordinary power to work wonders on behalf of the tribe. A further stage of development is reached when the man who uses his personal power for nefarious purposes undertakes by means of it to control spirits: magic then tends to pass into fetichism. Similarly, when rain and other social benefits come to be regarded as gifts of the gods, the power of the rainmaker comes to be regarded as a power to procure from the gods the gifts that they have to bestow: magic is displaced by religion. The opposition of principle between magic and religion thus makes itself manifest. It makes itself manifest in that the one promotes social and the other anti-social purposes: the spirit worshipped by any community as its god is a spirit who has the interests of the community at heart, and who ex officio condemns and punishes those who by magic or otherwise work injury to the members of the community. Finally, the decline of the belief in magic is largely due to the discovery that it does not produce the effects it professes to bring about. But the missionary will also dwell on the fact that his hearers feel it to be anti-social and to be condemned alike by their moral sentiments and their religious feeling . . . 70-104

FETICHISM

Fetichism is regarded by some as a stage of religious development, or as the form of religion found amongst men at the lowest stage of development known to us. From this the conclusion is sometimes drawn that fetichism is the source of all religion and of all religious values; and, therefore, that (as fetichism has no value) religion (which is an evolved form of fetichism) has no value either. This conclusion is then believed to be proved by the science of religion. In fact, however, students of the science of religion disclaim this conclusion and rightly assert that the science does not undertake to prove anything as to the truth or the value of religion.

Much confusion prevails as to what fetichism is; and the confusion is primarily due to Bosman. He confuses, while the science of religion distinguishes between, animal gods and fetiches. He asserts what we now know to be false, viz., that a fetich is an inanimate object and nothing more; and that the native rejects, or "breaks," one of these gods, knowing it to be a god.

Any small object which happens to arrest the attention of a negro, when he has a desire to gratify, may impress him as being a fetich, i.e. as having power to help him to gratify his desire. Here, Höffding says, is the simplest conceivable construction of religious ideas: here is presented religion under the guise of desire. Let it be granted, then, that the object attracts attention and is involuntarily associated with the possibility of attaining the desired end. It follows that, as in the period of animism, all objects are believed to be animated by spirits, fetich objects are distinguished from other objects by the fact—not that they are animated by spirits but—that it is believed they will aid in the accomplishment of the desired end. The picking up of a fetich object, however, is not always followed by the desired result; and the negro then explains "that it has lost its spirit." The spirit goes out of it, indeed, but may perchance be induced or even compelled to return into some other object; and then fetiches may be purposely made as well as accidentally found, and are liable to coercion as well as open to conciliation.

But, throughout this process, there is no religion. Religion is the worship of the gods of a community by the community for the good of the community. The cult of a fetich is conducted by an individual for his private ends; and the most important function of a fetich is to work evil against those members of the community who have incurred the fetich owner's resentment. Thus religion and fetich-worship are directed to ends not merely different but antagonistic. From the very outset religion in social fetichism is anti-social. To seek the origin of religion in fetichism is vain. Condemned, wherever it exists, by the religious and moral feelings of the community, fetichism cannot have been the primitive religion of mankind. The spirits of fetichism, according to Höffding, become eventually the gods of polytheism: such a spirit, so long as it is a fetich, is "the god of a moment," and must come to be permanent if it is to attain to the ranks of the polytheistic gods. But fetiches, even when their function becomes permanent, remain fetiches and do not become gods. They do not even become "departmental gods," for their powers are to further a man's desires generally. On the other hand, they have personality, even if they have not personal names. Finally, if, as Höffding believes, the word "god" originally meant "he who is worshipped," and gods are worshipped by the community, then fetiches, as they are nowhere worshipped by the community, are in no case gods.

The function of the fetich is anti-social; of the gods, to promote the well-being of the community. To maintain that a god is evolved out of a fetich is to maintain that practices destructive of society have only to be pushed far enough and they will prove the salvation of society . . . 105-137

PRAYER

Prayer is a phenomenon in the history of religion to which the science of religion has devoted but little attention—the reason alleged being that it is so simple and familiar as not to demand detailed study. It may, however, be that the phenomenon is indeed familiar yet not simple. Simple or not, it is a matter on which different views may be held. Thus though it may be agreed that in the lower forms of religion it is the accomplishment of desire that is asked for, a divergence of opinion emerges the moment the question is put, Whose desire? that of the individual or of the community? And instances may be cited to show that it is not for his own personal, selfish advantage alone that the savage always or even usually prays. It is the desires of the community that the god of the community is concerned to grant: the petition of an individual is offered and harkened to only so far as it is not prejudicial to the interests of the community. The statement that savage prayer is unethical may be correct in the sense that pardon for moral sin is not sought; it is incorrect, if understood to mean that the savage does not pray to do the things which his morality makes it incumbent on him to do, e.g. to fight successfully. The desires which the god is prayed to grant are ordinarily desires which, being felt by each and every member of the community, are the desires of the community, as such, and not of any one member exclusively.

Charms, it has been suggested, in some cases are prayers that by vain repetition have lost their religious significance and become mere spells. And similarly it has been suggested that out of mere spells prayer may have been evolved. But, on the hypothesis that a spell is something in which no religion is, it is clear that out of it no religion can come; while if prayer, i.e. religion, has been evolved out of spells, then there have never been spells wholly wanting in every religious element. Whether a given formula then is prayer or spell may be difficult to decide, when it has some features which seem to be magical and others which seem to be religious. The magical element may have been original and be in process of disappearing before the dawn of the religious spirit. Now, the formula uttered is usually accompanied by gestures performed. If the words are uttered to explain the gesture or rite, the explanation is offered to some one, the words are of the nature of a prayer to some one to grant the desire which the gesture manifests. On the other hand, if the gestures are performed to make the words more intelligible, then the action performed is, again, not magical, but is intended to make the words—the prayer—more emphatic. In neither case, then, is the gesture or rite magical in intent. Dr. Frazer's suggestion that it required long ages for man to discover that he could not always succeed—even by the aid of magic—in getting what he wanted; and that only when he made this discovery did he take to religion and prayer, is a suggestion which cannot be maintained in view of the fact that savage man is much more at the mercy of accidents than is civilised man. The suggestion, in fact, tells rather against than in favour of the view that magic preceded religion, and that spells preceded prayer.

The Australian black fellows might have been expected to present us with the spectacle of a people unacquainted with prayer. But in point of fact we find amongst them both prayers to Byamee and formulæ which, though now unintelligible even to the natives, may originally have been prayers. And generally speaking the presumption is that races, who distinctly admit the existence of spirits, pray to those spirits, even though their prayers be concealed from the white man's observation. Gods are there for the purpose of being prayed to. Prayer is the essence of religion, as is shown by the fact that gods, when they cease to be prayed to, are ignored rather than worshipped. Such gods—as in Africa and elsewhere—become little more than memories, when they no longer have a circle of worshippers to offer prayer and sacrifice to them.

The highest point reached in the evolution of pre-Christian prayer is when the gods, as knowing best what is good, are petitioned simply for things good. Our Lord's prayer is a revelation which the theory of evolution cannot account for or explain. Nor does Höffding's "antinomy of religious feeling" present itself to the Christian soul as an antinomy . . . 138-174

SACRIFICE

Prayer and sacrifice historically go together, and logically are indissoluble. Sacrifice, whether realised in an offering dedicated or in a sacrificial meal, is prompted by the worshippers' desire to feel that they are at one with the spirit worshipped. That desire manifests itself specially on certain regularly occurring occasions (harvest, seed time, initiation) and also in times of crisis. At harvest time the sacrifices or offerings are thank-offerings, as is shown by the fact that a formula of thanksgiving is employed. Primitive prayer does not consist solely in petitions for favours to come; it includes thanksgiving for blessings received. Such thanksgivings cannot by any possibility be twisted into magic.

Analogous to these thanksgivings at harvest time is the solemn eating of first-fruits amongst the Australian black fellows. If this solemn eating is not in Australia a survival of a sacramental meal, in which the god and his worshippers were partakers, it must be merely a ceremony whereby the food, which until it is eaten is taboo, is "desacralised." But, as a matter of fact, such food is not taboo to the tribe generally; and the object of the solemn eating cannot be to remove the taboo and desacralise the food for the tribe.

If the harvest rites or first-fruit ceremonials are sacrificial in nature, then the presumption is that so, too, are the ceremonies performed at seed time or the analogous period.

At initiation ceremonies or mysteries, even amongst the Australian black fellows, there is evidence to show that prayer is offered; and generally speaking we may say that the boy initiated is admitted to the worship of the tribal gods.

The spring and harvest customs are closely allied to one another and may be arranged in four groups: (1) In Mexico they plainly consist of the worship of a god—by means of sacrifice and prayer—and of communion. (2) In some other cases, though the god has no proper or personal name, and no image is made of him, "the new corn," Dr. Frazer says, "is itself eaten sacramentally, that is, as the body of the corn spirit"; and it is by this sacramental meal that communion is effected or maintained. (3) In the harvest customs of northern Europe, bread and dumplings are made and eaten sacramentally, "as a substitute for the real flesh of the divine being"; or an animal is slain and its flesh and blood are partaken of. (4) Amongst the Australian tribes there is a sacramental eating of the totem animal or plant. Now, these four groups of customs may be all religious (and Dr. Frazer speaks of them all as sacramental) or all magical; or it may be admitted that the first three are religious, and maintained that the fourth is strictly magical. But such a separation of the Australian group from the rest does not commend itself as likely; further, it overlooks the fact that it is at the period analogous to harvest time that the headman eats solemnly and sparingly of the plant or animal, and that at harvest time it is too late to work magic to cause the plant or animal to grow. The probability is, then, that both the Australian group and the others are sacrificial rites and are religious.

Such sacrificial rites, however, though felt to be the means whereby communion was effected and maintained between the god and his worshippers, may come to be interpreted as the making of gifts to the god, as the means of purchasing his favour, or as a full discharge of their obligations. When so interpreted they will be denounced by true religion. But though it be admitted that the sacrificial rite might be made to bear this aspect, it does not follow, as is sometimes supposed, that it was from the outset incapable of bearing any other. On the contrary, it was, from the beginning, not only the rite of making offerings to the god but, also, the rite whereby communion was attained, whereby the society of worshippers was brought into the presence of the god they worshipped, even though the chief benefits which the worshippers conceived themselves to receive were earthly blessings. It is because the rite had from the beginning this potentiality in it that it was possible for it to become the means whereby, through Christ, all men might be brought to God . . . 175-210

MORALITY

The question whether morality is based on religion, or religion on morality, is one which calls for discussion, inasmuch as it is apt to proceed on a mistaken view of facts in the history of religion. It is maintained that as a matter of history morality came first and religion afterwards; and that as a matter of philosophy religion presupposes morality. Reality, that is to say, is in the making; the spirit of man is self-realising; being is in process of becoming rationalised and moralised; religion in process of disappearing.

Early religion, it is said, is unethical: it has to do with spirits, which, as such, are not concerned with morality; with gods which are not ethical or ideal, and are not objects of worship in our sense of the term.

Now, the spirits which, in the period of animism, are believed to animate things, are not, it is true, concerned with morality; but then, neither are they gods. To be a god a spirit must have a community of worshippers; and it is as the protector of that community that he is worshipped. He protects the community against any individual member who violates the custom of the community. The custom of the community constitutes the morality of the society. Offences against that custom are offences against the god of the community. A god starts as an ethical power, and as an object of worship.

Still, it may be argued, before gods were, before religion was evolved, morality was; and this may be shown by the origin and nature of justice, which throughout is entirely independent of religion and religious considerations. On this theory, the origin of justice is to be found in the resentment of the individual. But, first, the individual, apart from society, is an abstraction and an impossibility: the individual never exists apart from but always as a member of some society. Next, justice is not the resentment of any individual, but the sentiment of the community, expressing itself in the action not of any individual but of the community as such. The responsibility both for the wrong done and for righting it rests with the community. The earliest offences against which public action is taken are said to be witchcraft and breaches of the marriage laws. The latter are not injuries resented by any individual: they are offences against the gods and are punished to avert the misfortunes which otherwise would visit the tribe. Witchcraft is especially offensive to the god of the community.

In almost, if not quite, the lowest stages of human development, disease and famine are regarded as punishments which fall on the community as a whole, because the community, in the person of one of its members, has offended some supernatural power. In quite the lowest stage the guilt of the offending member is also regarded as capable of infecting the whole community; and he is, accordingly, avoided by the whole community and tabooed. Taboo is due to the collective action, and expresses the collective feeling of the community as a whole. It is from such collective action and feeling that justice has been evolved and not from individual resentment, which is still and always was something different from justice. The offences punished by the community have always been considered, so far as they are offences against morality, to be offences against the gods of the community. The fact that in course of time such offences come to be punished always as militating against the good of society testifies merely to the general assumption that the good of man is the will of God: men do not believe that murder, adultery, etc., are merely offences against man's laws. It is only by ignoring this patent fact that it becomes possible to maintain that religion is built upon morality, and that we are discovering religion to be a superfluous superstructure.

It may be argued that the assumption that murder, adultery, etc., are offences against God's will is a mere assumption, and that in making the assumption we are fleeing "to the bosom of faith." The reply is that we are content not merely to flee but to rest there . . . 211-238

CHRISTIANITY

If we are to understand the place of Christianity in the evolution of religion, we must consider the place of religion in the evolution of humanity; and I must explain the point of view from which I propose to approach the three ideas of (1) evolution, (2) the evolution of humanity, (3) the evolution of religion.

I wish to approach the idea of evolution from the proposition that the individual is both a means by which society attains its end, and an end for the sake of which society exists. Utilitarianism has familiarised us with the view that society exists for the sake of the individual and for the purpose of realising the happiness and good of every individual: no man is to be treated merely as a chattel, existing solely as a means whereby his owner, or the governing class, may benefit. But this aspect of the facts is entirely ignored by the scientific theory of evolution: according to that theory, the individual exists only as a factor in the process of evolution, as one of the means by which, and not as in any sense the end for which, the process is carried on.

Next, this aspect of the facts is ignored not only by the scientific theory of evolution, but also by the theory which humanitarianism holds as to the evolution of humanity, viz. that it is a process moving through the three stages of custom, religion, and humanitarianism. That process is still, as it has long been in the past, far from complete: the end is not yet. It is an end in which, whenever and if ever realised on earth, we who are now living shall not live to partake: we are—on this theory of the evolution of humanity—means, and solely means, to an end which, when realised, we shall not partake in. Being an end in which we cannot participate, it is not an end which can be rationally set up for us to strive to attain. Nor will the generation, which is ultimately to enjoy it, find much satisfaction in reflecting that their enjoyment has been purchased at the cost of others. To treat a minority of individuals as the end for which humanity is evolved, and the majority as merely means, is a strange pass for humanitarianism to come to.

Approaching the evolution of religion from the point of view that the individual must always be regarded both as an end and as a means, we find that Buddhism denies the individual to be either the one or the other, for his very existence is an illusion, and an illusion which must be dispelled, in order that he may cease from an existence which it is an illusion to imagine that he possesses. If, however, we turn to other religions less highly developed than Buddhism, we find that, in all, the existence of the individual as well as of the god of the community is assumed; that the interests of the community are the will of the community's god; that the interests of the community are higher than the interests of the individual, when they appear to differ; and that the man who prefers the interests of the community to his own is regarded as the higher type of man. In fine, the individual, from this point of view, acts voluntarily as the means whereby the end of society may be realised. And, in so acting, he testifies to his conviction that he will thereby realise his own end.

Throughout the history of religion these two facts are implied: first, the existence of the individual as a member of society seeking communion with God; next, the existence of society as a means of which the individual is the end. Hence two consequences with regard to evolution: first, evolution may have helped to make us, but we are helping to make it; next, the end of evolution is not wholly outside any one of us, but in part is realised in us. And it is just because the end is both within us and without us that we are bound up with our fellow-man and God.

Whether the process of evolution is moving to any end whatever, is a question which science declines—formally refuses—to consider. Whether the end at which religion aims is possible or not, has in any degree been achieved or not, is a question which the science of religion formally declines to consider. If, however, we recognise that the end of religion, viz. communion with God, is an end at which we ought to aim, then the process whereby the end tends to be attained is no longer evolution in the scientific sense. It is a process in which progress may or may not be made. As a fact, the missionary everywhere sees arrested development, imperfect communion with God; for the different forms of religion realise the end of religion in different degrees. Christianity claims to be "final," not in the chronological sense, but in that it alone finds the true basis and the only end of society in the love of God. The Christian theory of society again differs from all other theories in that it not only regards the individuals composing it as continuing to exist after death, but teaches that the society of which the individual is truly a member, though it manifests itself in this world, is realised in the next.

The history of religion is the history of man's search for God. That search depends for its success, in part, upon man's will. Christianity cannot be stationary: the extent to which we push our missionary outposts forward gives us the measure of our vitality. And in that respect, as in others, the vitality of the United States is great . . . 239-265

APPENDIX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266 ad fin.

INTRODUCTION

Of the many things that fill a visitor from the old country with admiration, on his first visit to the United States, that which arrests his attention most frequently, is the extent and success with which science is applied to practical purposes. And it is beginning to dawn upon me that in the United States it is not only pure science which is thus practically applied,—the pure sciences of mechanics, physics, mathematics,—but that the historic sciences also are expected to justify themselves by their practical application; and that amongst the historic sciences not even the science of religion is exempted from the common lot. It also may be useful; and had better be so,—if any one is to have any use for it. It must make itself useful to the man who has practical need of its results and wishes to apply them—the missionary. He it is who, for the practical purposes of the work to which he is called, requires an applied science of religion; and Hartford Theological Seminary may, I believe, justly claim to be the first institution in the world which has deliberately and consciously set to work to create by the courses of lectures, of which this series is the very humble beginning, an applied science of religion.

How, then, will the applied science differ from the pure science of religion? In one way it will not differ: an applied science does not sit in judgment upon the pure science on which it is based; it accepts the truths which the pure science presents to all the world, and bases itself upon them. The business of pure science is to discover facts; that of the applied science is to use them. The business of the science of religion is to discover all the facts necessary if we are to understand the growth and history of religion. The business of the applied science is, in our case, to use the discovered facts as a means of showing that Christianity is the highest manifestation of the religious spirit.

In dealing with the applied science, then, we recover a liberty which the pure science does not enjoy. The science of religion is a historic science. Its student looks back upon the past; and looks back upon it with a single purpose, that of discovering what, as a matter of fact, did happen, what was the order in which the events occurred. In so looking back he may, and does, see many things which he could wish had not occurred; but he has no power to alter them; he has no choice but to record them; and his duty, his single duty, is to ascertain the historic facts and to establish the historic truth. With the applied science the case is very different. There the student sets his face to the future, no longer to the past. The truths of pure science are the weapons placed in his hand with which he is to conquer the world. It is in the faith that the armour provided him by science is sure and will not fail him that he addresses himself to his chosen work. The implements are set in his hands. The liberty is his to employ them for what end he will. That liberty is a consequence of the fact that the student's object no longer is to ascertain the past, but to make the future.

The business of the pure science is to ascertain the facts and state the truth. To what use the facts and truth are afterwards put, is a question with which the pure science has nothing to do. The same facts may be put to very different uses: from the same facts very different conclusions may be drawn. The facts which the science of religion establishes may be used and are used for different and for contradictory purposes. The man who is agnostic or atheist uses them to support his atheism or agnosticism; or even, if he is so unwise, to prove it. The man who has religion is equally at liberty to use them in his support; and if he rarely does that, at any rate he still more rarely commits the mistake of imagining that the science of religion proves the truth of his particular views on the subject of religion. Indeed, his tendency is rather in the opposite direction: he is unreasonably uneasy and apt to have a disquieting alarm lest the science of religion may really be a danger to religion. This alarm may very naturally arise when he discovers that to the scientific student one religion is as another, and the question is indifferent whether there is any truth in any form. It is very easy to jump from these facts to the erroneous conclusion that science of religion is wholly incompatible with religious belief. And of course it is quite human and perfectly intelligible that that conclusion should be proclaimed aloud as correct and inevitable by the man who, being an atheist, fights for what he feels to be the truth.

We must, therefore, once more insist upon the simple fact that science of religion abstains necessarily from assuming either that religion is true or is not true. What it does assume is what no one will deny, viz. that religion is a fact. Religious beliefs may be right or they may be wrong: but they exist. Therefore they can be studied, described, classified, placed in order of development, and treated as a branch of sociology and as one department of the evolution of the world. And all this can be done without once asking the question whether religious belief is true and right and good, or not. Whether it is pronounced true or false by you or me, will not in the least shake the fact that it has existed for thousands of years, that it has had a history during that period, and that that history may be written. We may have doubts whether the institution of private property is a good thing, or whether barter and exchange are desirable proceedings. But we shall not doubt that private property exists or that it may be exchanged. And we shall not imagine that the science of political economy, which deals, among other things with the production and exchange of wealth which is private property, makes any pronouncement whatever on the question whether private property is or is not an institution which we ought to support and believe in. The conclusions established by the science of political economy are set forth before the whole world; and men may use them for what purpose they will. They may and do draw very different inferences from them, even contradictory inferences. But if they do, it is because they use them for different ends or contradictory purposes. And the fact that the communist or socialist uses political economy to support his views no more proves that socialism is the logical consequence of political economy than the fact that the atheist uses or misuses, for his own purposes, the conclusions of the science of religion proves his inferences to be the logical outcome of the science.

The science of religion deals essentially with the one fact that religion has existed and does exist. It is from that fact that the missionary will start; and it is with men who do not question the fact that he will have to do. The science of religion seeks to trace the historic growth, the evolution of religion; to establish what actually was, not to judge what ought to have been,—science knows no "ought," in that sense or rather in that tense, the past tense. Its work is done, its last word has been said, when it has demonstrated what was. It is the heart which sighs to think what might have been, and which puts on it a higher value than it does on what actually came to pass. There is then another order in which facts may be ranged besides the chronological order in which historically they occurred; and that is the order of their value. It is an order in which we do range facts, whenever we criticise them. It is the order in which we range them, whenever we pass judgment on them. Or, rather, passing judgment on them is placing them in the order of their value. And the chronological order of their occurrence is quite a different thing from the order in which we rank them when we judge them according to their value and importance. It is, or rather it would be, quite absurd to say, in the case of literature, or art, for instance, that the two orders are identical. There it is obvious and universally admitted that one period may reach a higher level than another which in point of time is later. The classical period is followed by a post-classical period; culmination is followed by decline. Now, this difference in point of the literary or artistic value of two periods is as real and as fundamental as the time order or chronological relation of the two periods. It would be patently ridiculous for any ardent maintainer of the importance of distinguishing between good literature and bad, good art and bad art, to say that the one period, being good, must have been chronologically prior to the other, because, from the point of art, it was better than that other. Every one can see that. The chronological order, the historic order, is one thing; the order of literary value or artistic importance is another. But if this is granted, and every one will grant it, then it is also, and thereby, granted that the historic order of events is not the same thing as the order of their value, and is no guide to it. Thus far I have illustrated these remarks by reference to literary and artistic values. But I need hardly say that I have been thinking really all the time of religious values. If the student of literature or of art surveys the history of art and literature with the purpose of judging the value of the works produced, the student of religion may and must survey the history of religion with the same purpose. If the one student is entitled, as he justly is entitled, to say that the difference between the literary or artistic value of two periods is as real and as fundamental as is their difference in the order of time, then the student of religion is claiming no exceptional or suspicious privilege for himself. He is claiming no privilege at all; he is but exercising the common rights of all students like himself, when he points out that differences in religious values are just as real and just as fundamental as the historic or chronological order itself.

The assignment of values, then,—be it the assignment of the value of works of art, literature, or religion,—is a proceeding which is not only possible (as will be somewhat contemptuously admitted by those who believe that evolution is progress, and that there is no order of value distinct from the order of history and chronological succession); the assignment of value is not only permissible (as may be admitted by those who believe, or for want of thought fancy they believe, that the historic order of events is the only order which can really exist), it is absolutely inevitable. It is the concomitant or rather an integral part of every act of perception. Everything that we perceive is either dismissed from attention because it is judged at the moment to have no value, or, if it has value, attention is concentrated upon it.

From this point of view, then, it should be clear that there is some deficiency in such a science as the science of religion, which, by the very conditions that determine its existence, is precluded from ever raising the question of the value of any of the religions with which it deals. Why does it voluntarily, deliberately, and of its own accord, rigidly exclude the question whether religions have any value—whether religion itself has any value? One answer there is to that question which once would have been accepted as conclusive, viz. that the object of science is truth. That answer delicately implies that whether religion has any value is an enquiry to which no truthful answer can be given. The object of science is truth; therefore science alone, with all modesty be it said, can attain truth. Science will not ask the question—or, when it is merciful, abstains from asking the question—whether religion is true. So the reasonable and truthful man must, on that point, necessarily be agnostic: whether religion is true, he does not know.

This train of inferences follows—so far as it is permitted illogical inferences to follow at all—from the premise that the object of science is truth. Or, rather, it follows from that premise as we should now understand it, viz. that the object of historic science is historic truth. That is the object of the science of religion—to be true to the historic facts, to discover and to state them accurately. On the principle of the division of labour, or on the principle of taking one thing at a time, it is obviously wise that when we are endeavouring to discover the historic sequence of events, we should confine ourselves to that task and not suffer ourselves to be distracted and diverted by other and totally different considerations. The science of religion, therefore, is justified, in the opinion of all who are entitled to express an opinion, in steadfastly declining to consider any other point than the historic order of the facts with which it deals. But in so declining to go beyond its self-appointed task of reconstituting the historic order of events and tracing the evolution of religion, it does not, thereby, imply that it is impossible to place them, or correctly place them, in their order of value. To say that they have no value would be just as absurd as to say that works of literature or art have no literary or artistic value. To say that it is difficult to assign their value may be true, but is no argument against, it is rather a stimulus in favour of, making the attempt. And it is just the order value, the relative value, of forms of religion which is of absorbing interest to missionaries. It is a valuation which is essential to what I have already designated as the applied science of religion. Thus far in speaking of the distinction between the historic order in which the various forms of art, literature, and religion have occurred, and the order of value in which the soul of every man who is sensible either to art or to literature or to religion instinctively attempts to place them, I have necessarily assumed the position of one who looks backward over the past. It was impossible to compare and contrast the order value with the historic order, save by doing so. It was necessary to point out that the very same facts which can be arranged chronologically and in the order of their evolution can also be—and, as a matter of fact, by every man are—arranged more or less roughly, more or less correctly, or incorrectly, in the order of their value. It is now necessary for us to set our faces towards the future. I say "necessary" for the simple reason that the idea of "value" carries with it a reference to the future. If a thing has value, it is because we judge that it may produce some effect and serve some purpose which we foresee, or at least surmise. If, on looking back upon past history, we pronounce that an event had value, we do so because we see that it served, or might have served, some end of which we approve. Its value is relative in our eyes to some end or purpose which was relatively future to it. The objects which we aim at, the ends after which we strive, are in the future. Those things have value which may subserve our ends and help us to attain our purposes. And our purposes, our ends, and objects are in the future. There, there is hope and freedom, room to work, the chance of remedying the errors of the past, the opportunity to make some forward strides and to help others on.

It is the end we aim at, the object we strive for, the ideal we set before us, that gives value to what we do, and to what has been done by us and others. Now our ends, our objects, and our ideals are matters of the will, on which the will is set, and not merely matters of which we have intellectual apprehension. They are not past events but future possibilities. The conviction that we can attain them or attain toward them is not, when stated as a proposition, a proposition that can be proved, as a statement referring to the past may be proved: but it is a conviction which we hold, or a conviction which holds us, just as strongly as any conviction that we have about any past event of history. The whole action of mankind, every action that every man performs, is based upon that conviction. It is the basis of all that we do, of everything that is and has been done by us and others. And it is Faith. In that sign alone can the world be conquered.

When, then, the man of religion proposes by faith to conquer the world, he is simply doing, wittingly and in full consciousness of what he is doing, that which every man does in his every action, even though he may not know it. To make it a sneer or a reproach that religion is a mere matter of faith; to imagine that there is any better, or indeed that there is any other, ground of action,—is demonstrably unreasonable. The basis of such notions is, of course, the false idea that the man of sense acts upon knowledge, and that the man who acts on faith is not a sensible man. The error of such notions may be exposed in a sentence. What knowledge have we of the future? We have none. Absolutely none. We expect that nature will prove uniform, that causes will produce their effects. We believe the future will resemble, to some extent, the past. But we have no knowledge of the future; and such belief as we have about it, like all other belief,—whether it be belief in religion or in science,—is simply faith. When, then, the man of science consults the records of the past or the experiments of the present for guidance as to what will or may be, he is exhibiting his faith not in science, but in some reality, in some real being, in which is no shadow of turning. When the practical man uses the results of pure science for some practical end, he is taking them on faith and uses them in the further faith that the end he aims at can be realised, and shall by him be realised, if not in one way, then in another. The missionary, then, who uses the results of the science of religion, who seeks to benefit by an applied science of religion, is but following in the footsteps of the practical man, and using business methods toward the end he is going to realise.

The end he is going to realise is to convert men to Christianity. The faith in which he acts is that Christianity is the highest form which religion can take, the final form it shall take. As works of art or literature may be classed either according to order of history or order of value, so the works of the religious spirit may be classed, not only in chronological order, but also in order of religious value. I am not aware that any proof can be given to show that any given period of art or literature is better than any other. The merits of Shakespeare or of Homer may be pointed out; and they may, or they may not, when pointed out, be felt. If they are felt, no proof is needed; if they are not, no proof is possible. But they can be pointed out—by one who feels them. And they can be contrasted with the work of other poets in which they are less conspicuous. And the contrast may reveal the truth in a way in which otherwise it could never have been made plain.

I know no other way in which the relative values of different forms of religion can become known or be made known. You may have been tempted to reflect, whilst I have been speaking, that, on the principle I have laid down, there is no reason why there should not be five hundred applied sciences, or applications of the science, of religion, instead of one; for every one of the many forms of religion may claim to apply the science of religion to its own ends. To that I may reply first, that à priori you would expect that every nation would set up its own literature as the highest; but, as a matter of fact, you find Shakespeare generally placed highest amongst dramatists, Homer amongst epic poets. You do not find the conception of literary merit varying from nation to nation in such a way that there are as many standards of value as there are persons to apply them. You find that there tends to be one standard. Next, since the different forms of religion must be compared if their relative values are to be ascertained, the method of the applied science of religion must be the method of comparison. Whatever the outcome that is anticipated from the employment of the applied science, it is by the method of comparison that it must act. And one indication of genuine faith is readiness to employ that method, and assured confidence in the result of its employment. The missionary's life is the best, because the most concrete example of the practical working of the method of comparison; and the outcome of the comparison which is made by those amongst whom and for whom he works makes itself felt in their hearts, their lives, and sometimes in their conversion. It is the best example, because the value of a religion to be known must be felt. But though it is the best because it is the simplest, the most direct, and the most convincing it is not that which addresses itself primarily to the reason, and it is not one which is produced by the applied science of religion. It is not one which can be produced by any science, pure or applied. The object of the applied science of religion is to enable the missionary himself to compare forms of religion, incidentally in order that he may know what by faith he feels, and without faith he could not feel, viz. that Christianity is the highest form; but still more in order that he may teach others, and may have at his command the facts afforded by the science of religion, wherewith to appeal, when necessary, to the reason and intelligence as well as to the hearts and feelings of those for whose salvation he is labouring.

The time has happily gone by when the mere idea of comparing Christianity with any other religion would have been rejected with horror as treasonous and treacherous. The fact that that time has now gone by is in itself evidence of a stronger faith in Christianity. What, if it was not fear, at any rate presented the appearance of fear, has been banished; and we can and do, in the greater faith that has been vouchsafed to us, look with confidence on the proposal to compare Christianity with other religions. The truth cannot but gain thereby, and we rest on Him who is the way and the truth. We recognise fully and freely that comparison implies similarity, points of resemblance, ay! and even features of identity. And of that admission much has been made—and more than can be maintained. It has been pressed to mean that all forms of religion, from the lowest to the highest, are identical; that therefore there is nothing more or other in the highest than in the lowest; and that in the lowest you see how barbarous is religion and how unworthy of civilised man. Now, that course of argument is open to one obvious objection which would be fatal to it, even if it were the only objection, which it is not. That objection is that whether we are using the method of comparison for the purpose of estimating the relative values of different forms of religion; or whether we are using the comparative method of science, with the object of discovering and establishing facts, quite apart from the value they may have for any purpose they may be put to when they have been established; in either case, comparison is only applied, and can only be applied to things which, though they resemble one another, also differ from one another. It is because they differ, at first sight, that the discovery of their resemblance is important. And it is on that aspect of the truth that the comparative method of science dwells. Comparative philology, for instance, devotes itself to establishing resemblances between, say, the Indo-European languages, which for long were not suspected to bear any likeness to one another or to have any connection with each other. Those resemblances are examined more and more closely, are stated with more and more precision, until they are stated as laws of comparative philology, and recognised as laws of science to which there are no exceptions. Yet when the resemblances have been worked out to the furthest detail, no one imagines that Greek and Sanskrit are the same language, or that the differences between them are negligible. It is then surprising that any student of comparative religion should imagine that the discovery or the recognition of points of likeness between the religions compared will ever result in proving that the differences between them are negligible or non-existent. Such an inference is unscientific, and it has only to be stated to show that the student of comparative religion is but exercising a right common to all students of all sciences, when he claims that points of difference cannot be overlooked or thrust aside.

If, then, the student of the science of religion directs his attention primarily to the discovery of resemblances between religions which at first sight bear no more resemblance to one another than Greek did to the Celtic tongues; if the comparative method of science dwells upon the fact that things which differ from one another may also resemble one another, and that their resemblances may be stated in the form of scientific laws,—there is still another aspect of the truth, and it is that between things which resemble one another there are also differences. And the jury of the world will ultimately demand to know the truth and the whole truth.

Now, to get not only at the truth, but at the whole of the truth, is precisely the business of the applied science of religion, and is the very object of that which, in order to distinguish it from the comparative method of science, I have called the method of comparison. For the purposes of fair comparison not only must the resemblances, which the comparative method of science dwells on, be taken into account, but the differences, also, must be weighed. And it is the business of the method of comparison, the object of the applied science of religion, to do both things. Neither of the two can be dispensed with; neither is more important than the other; but for the practical purposes of the missionary it is important to begin with the resemblances; and on grounds of logic and of theory, the resemblances must be first established, if the importance, nay! the decisive value, of the differences is to go home to the hearts and minds of the missionary's hearers. The resemblances are there and are to be studied ultimately in order to bring out the differences and make them stand forth so plainly as to make choice between the higher form of religion and the lower easy, simply because the difference is so manifest. Now, the missionary's hearer could not know, much less appreciate, the difference, the superiority of Christianity, as long as Christianity was unknown to him. And it is equally manifest, though it has never been officially recognised until now and by the Hartford Theological Seminary, that neither can the missionary adequately set forth the superiority of Christianity to the lower forms of religion, unless he knows something about them and about the points in which their inferiority consists. Hitherto he has had to learn that for himself, as he went on, and, as it were, by rule of thumb. But, on business principles, economy of labour and efficiency in work will be better secured if he is taught before he goes out, and is taught on scientific methods. What he has to learn is the resemblances between the various forms of religion, the differences between them, and the relative values of those differences.

It may perhaps be asked, Why should those differences exist? And if the question should be put, I am inclined to say that to give the answer is beyond the scope of the applied science of religion. The method of comparison assumes that the differences do exist, and it cannot begin to be employed unless and until they exist. They are and must be taken for granted, at any rate by the applied science of religion, and if the method of comparison is to be set to work. Indeed, if we may take the principle of evolution to be the differentiation of the homogeneous, we may go further and say that the whole theory of evolution, and not merely a particular historic science, such as the science of religion, postulates differentiation and the principle of difference, and does not explain it,—evolution cannot start, the homogeneous cannot be other than homogeneous, until the principle of difference and the power of differentiation is assumed.

That the science of religion at the end leaves untouched those differences between religions which it recognised at the beginning, is a point on which I insisted, as against those who unwarrantably proclaim the science to have demonstrated that all religions alike are barbarisms or survivals of barbarism. It is well, therefore, to bear that fact in mind when attempts are made to explain the existence of the differences by postulating a period when they were non-existent. That postulate may take form in the supposition that originally the true religion alone existed, and that the differences arose later. That is a supposition which has been made by more than one people, and in more ages than one. It carries with it the consequence that the history—it would be difficult to call it the evolution and impossible to call it the progress—of religion has been one of degradation generally. Owing, however, to the far-reaching and deep-penetrating influence of the theory of evolution, it has of late grown customary to assume that the movement, the course of religious history, has been in the opposite direction; and that it has moved upwards from the lowest forms of religion known to us, or from some form analogous to the lowest known forms, through the higher to the highest. This second theory, however different in its arrangement of the facts from the Golden Age theory first alluded to, is still fundamentally in agreement with it, inasmuch as it also assumes that the differences exhibited later in the history of religion at first were non-existent. Both theories assume the existence of the originally homogeneous, but they disagree as to the nature of the differences which supervened, and also as to the nature of the originally homogeneous.

I wish therefore to call attention to the simple truth that the facts at the disposal of the science of religion neither enable nor warrant us to decide between these two views. If we were to come to a decision on the point, we should have to travel far beyond the confines of the science of religion, or the widest bounds of the theory of evolution, and enquire why there should be error as well as truth—or, to put the matter very differently, why there should be truth at all. But if we started travelling on that enquiry, we should not get back in time for this course of lectures. Fortunately it is not necessary to take a ticket for that journey—perhaps not possible to secure a return ticket. We have only to recognise that the science of religion confines itself to constating and tracing the differences, and does not attempt to explain why they should exist; while the applied science of religion is concerned with the practical business of bringing home the difference between Christianity and other forms of religion to the hearts of those whose salvation may turn on whether the missionary has been properly equipped for his task.