Page:Philosophical Review Volume 15.djvu/44

26 best historians of his own time, the difference as regards the historical method will not appear very great in either direction. If, however, we consider Hume's critical attitude toward certain pseudo-historical theories of his day, we shall find that in historical sense, in appreciation of the distinction between a real genetic method and mere logical analysis, and in understanding of the actual motive forces of human nature, he was far in advance at least of the philosophical thought of his day. Moreover, his destructive criticism of these theories was itself an important contribution to a clearer understanding of historical problems. The criticism in question is that in The Natural History of Religion on the notion of a primitive, rational religion.

Besides the rational demonstrative theology on which the Deistic position rested, an equally essential side of the movement was an appeal to a supposed history of religion to support and illustrate the demonstrative portions of the system. Not only were the current proofs of the existence of God and the immortality of the soul supposed to be as certainly established as the demonstrations of mathematics, but the rational religion thus demonstrated was assumed to be a natural possession of the human race. It was assumed to belong to man as a rational being, and hence to have been held universally by all men so long as they remained in a pure state of nature, uncorrupted by sin and not misled by the machinations of an ambitious and designing priesthood. The universal assumption of Deism was that the true rational religion was at the same time common to all men and original in point of time. In short, the distinction between the method of logical analysis and the genetic method as modes of explanation had not yet appeared in clear consciousness. The simplest logical elements were assumed to be also the earliest genetic elements.

In the very first of the English Deists this interest in the history of religion and this method of applying it were already in evidence. As early as the middle of the seventeenth century, Lord Herbert of Cherbury had examined the religions of the world and