Page:An analysis of religious belief (1877).djvu/23



GENERAL INTRODUCTION.

Human nature, among all the phenomena it offers to the curious inquiries of the student, presents none of more transcendent interest than the phenomenon of Religion. Pervading the whole history of mankind from the very earliest ages of which we have any authentic knowledge up to the present day; exercising on the wild and wandering tribes, which seem to have divided the earth among them in those primitive times, an influence scarcely less profound than it has ever exercised on the most polite and cultivated nations of the modern world; leading now to peace and now to war; now to the firmest of alliances, now to the bitterest enmities; uniting some in the bonds of a love so enduring as to outlast and put to shame the fleeting unions of earthly passion; separating others, even when every motive of interest and natural affection conspired to unite them, so completely as to impel them to deliver each other up to the ghastliest tortures; Religion deserves a foremost place—if not the foremost place of all—among the emotions which have in their several ways affected, modified, and controlled the current of human events.

Forming, as it does, so large an element in the constitution of our complex nature; and playing so vast a part in guiding our actions, Religion must well deserve to be made the subject of philosophical inquiry. If we can by any scientific means discover its origin, lay bare its true character to the gaze of students, and estimate the value of its pretensions to be in posses