Page:Collier's New Encyclopedia v. 07.djvu/575

LEFT BELIGION 489 KELIGION fathers and Schoolmen attempted only to give a definition of true religion. The difficulty of framing a correct definition of religion is very great. Such a defini- tion ought to apply to nothing but reli- gion, and to differentiate religion from everything else, as, for example, from im- aginative idealization, art, morality, or philosophy. It should apply to every- thing which is naturally and commonly called religion; to religion as a sub- jective spiritual state, and to all reli- gions, high or low, true or false, which have obtained objective historical real- ization. And it should neither expressly nor by implication exclude any essential element of religion, but express in a general way all that is necessarily in- cluded in its nature, indispensible to its notion. Since the need for definitions of this kind was felt — i. e., since the comparative study of religions began to be cultivated — numerous attempts to supply it have been made, but few, if any, of the definitions of religion as yet proposed fulfill all the requirements. Those of Kant, Fichte, Schleiermachei-, Hegel, Strauss, Wundt, Pfleiderer, Her- bert Spencer, Matthew Arnold, Tylor, John Caird, and Max Miiller have at- tracted most attention. The classification of religions also pre- sents great difficulties. To distribute them into (1) true and false religions, or (2) natural and revealed religions, or (3) natural and positive religions, or (4) religions of savage and of civilized peoples, or (5) book -religions and re- ligions not possessed of sacred books, or (6) individual religions (i. e., founded by great individual teachers) and natural or race religions (i. e., the collective products of peoples or races, the growth of generations), must obviously be sci- entifically inadequate and unsatisfactory, though some of the classifications thus obtained may not be without truth or interest. Max Miiller holds that "the only scientific and truly genetic classifi- cation of religions is the same as that of languages," and Maurice Vernes that they must be classified according to races. And there can be no doubt that, if religions, languages, and races are properly classified, the classifications will, on the whole, correspond or coincide. Still they ought to be classified independ- ently, from a study of their own proper natures, and a complete accordance of their classifications is not to be looked for. The fact, for instance, that there are universal religions, reli- gions not limited by language or race, must not be ignored or depreciated. Hegel's classification is very ingenious and suggestive. He distributes religions into religions of nature, religions of spirituality, and the absolute or Chris- tian religion, answering respectively both to the chief stages of the historical realization of religion, and to the child- hood, youth, and manhood of humanity. The religions of nature are represented as including (1) immediate religion (sorcery and fetish-wor.ship) ; (2) pan- theistic religion, which comprehends the religion of measure (China), the religion of phantasy (Brahmanism), and the re- ligion of being-in-itself (Buddhism) ; and (3) religion which tends to freedom, and which is exemplified in the religion of the good or of light (ancient Persian), the religion of sorrow (Syrian), and the religion of mystery (Egypt). The re- ligions of spirituality are held to be these three — the religion of sublimity (He- brew), the religion of beauty (Greek), and the religion of the understanding (Roman). The classification of Von Hartman is of the same character, being very ingeniously conformed to the needs of his own philosophy, and yet not conspiciously inconsistent with the facts. The classifications of Lubbock, Tylor, Spencer, Reville, and D'Alvi- ella deserve attention as being based on an extensive and close study of religions, including those vague and rude religions to which it is especially difficult to as- sign appropriate places in a natural and comprehensive scheme of distribution. No general agreement, however, has been as yet reached either in determining the species of these religions or the order of their succession. Professor Tiele classifies religions as follows: I. Nature religions, which com- prehend (a) Polydaemonistic magical re- ligions under the control of animism; (6) Purified or organized magical religions — Therianthropic polytheism (1) unorgan- ized, and (2) organized; (c) Worship of manlike but superhuman and serai-ethical beings — Anthropomorphic polytheism, il. Ethical religions, which are either (a) National nomistic (nomothetic) re- ligious communities — Taoism, Confucian- ism, Brahmanism, Jainism and Primitive Buddhism, Mazdaism, Mosaism, and Judaism; or (6) Universalistic religious communities — Islam, Buddhism, Christi- anity. Religion is virtually universal, though, of course, neither the possibility nor the existence of atheism can be reasonably denied. The instances which Biichner, Lubbock, and others have adduced to prove that there are whole peoples des- titute of religion will not stand the test of examination. Not one adequately at- tested case of the kind has yet been produced; and even if such a case were