Page:George Archdall Reid 1896 The present evolution of man.djvu/201

Rh religion, and therefore to traits which are acquired, not inborn.

Now there is probably nothing in the environment of man that has more mightily affected his knowledge, and ways of thinking and acting, than his religious systems. They have been the greatest of his educational influences, and therefore there is nothing that so certainly gives a nation its status in the scale of civilization, progress, and prosperity as the faith it professes; for every religion, by teaching beliefs and ideas peculiar to itself, imposes on its adherents a state of society resulting from those acquired beliefs, and ideas quite distinct and different from that which is imposed by any other religion, and thus produces a mental uniformity which is much greater than the mental uniformity produced by racial, climatic, or any other influences. We may expect to find, therefore, that all communities that have any given religion in common, have also mental characteristics so much in common that the resulting state of society in any one of the communities is such as is more or less common to all the other communities—that they all have a nearly similar civilization, attain to a nearly similar degree of prosperity and enlightenment, and exhibit a nearly similar degree of respect for law and order, &c. That this is true there is unlimited evidence; for throughout the world, whatever community of whatever race, in whatever climate, professes a given religion, it invariably has a civilization nearly similar to that of all the other communities professing the same religion. Other educational influences may of course modify the civilization which is associated with any religion, but so great and so dominant is the influence of the latter, that the modification is in all cases surprisingly slight.

The example of the Mahomedans, since they include in their ranks a great number of races, dwelling in a