Page:An analysis of religious belief (1877).djvu/26

 *mation, habits, or character of any class of animals, he can only do so by a comparison of different members of that class. How misleading our conclusions frequently are in matters like these when they are not based upon a sufficiently wide comparison, will be familiar to all. And though the analogy between these sciences and religion is far from precise, yet no good reason can be assigned why a method, which has been so successful in one case, should be totally neglected in the latter. Nor is it enough to say that this method is capable of application to the subject in hand. Religion, owing to certain characteristics which will now be explained, lends itself with peculiar facility to an inquiry thus conducted.

A merely superficial and passing glance at the phenomena presented to us by the history and actual condition of the world brings clearly to light two facts:

1. The absolute, or all but absolute universality of some kind of religious perception or religious feeling.

2. The countless variety of forms under which that feeling has made its appearance.

History and the works of travelers, amply prove that no considerable nation has ever been without religion, and that if it has ever been wanting, it has only been among the rudest savages, whose mental and moral condition was too low to be capable of any but the most obvious impressions of sense. Equally indubitable is the second proposition. We are acquainted with no period in which each country did not possess its own special variety of religious doctrine; we are acquainted with none in which there were not many and wide divergences within the bosom of each country among individuals, among sects, and among churches.

In this universality of a certain sentiment, accompanied by this variety of modes, we have at least a possible distinction between the Substance and the Form, between the universal emotion known as Religion, and the local or temporary coloring it may happen to assume.

It will be convenient if we call the substance by the name of, and the form by that of. The use of these terms in these senses is no doubt slightly arbitrary, yet the shade of difference in their ordinary meaning is sufficient to justify it.