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RELIGION. others are inclusive. Another distinction between the two types lies in the fact that if the earlier is ethical and legalistic, the latter is spiritual. The religions coextensive with life lay more weight on the spirit of man in its relation with the divine, and less, relatively speaking, on cult and ritual. A striking example of this is seen in the origin of Buddhism, which is essentially a revolt from the excessive rituality of Brahmanical Hinduism toward a deep spirituality with, in its pure form, almost no cult. As the maintenance of a priesthood is conditioned in a great measure by an elaborate cult, it is obvious that in this final type, conspicuous for simplicity of ritual, the priest occupies a far less important position than in the religions either of primitive or advanced culture. This affords in part the explanation of the fact that the reforms which have resulted in religions of the highest type have been made in every case by individuals outside the priestly code, by the Hebrew Prophets, by Buddha, Zoroaster, Mohammed, and Jesus, Nor is this in any way a reproach to the priest. For he is in the nature of things a conserver, not an inaugurator, and rightly so, and if in some instances he is shown by the results to have been over-cautious, he is not thereby to be convicted either of dishonesty or of ignorance. Finally, religions of this class go further than the individual or than the State, herein contrasting sharply even with the religions of advanced culture. They aspire to be world-religions, and three of them, Buddhism, Mohammedanism, and Christianity, are in fact the leading religions in numbers and extent. We have in this aspiration yet another characteristic distinction between the religions coextensive with life and all other forms of religious cult.

The study of comparative religion is of modern origin. It is indeed true that we find in the histories of Herodotus, in the De Iside et Osiride of Plutarch, in the De Dea Syria, generally ascribed to Lucian, in the Germania of Tacitus, and in brief mention in numerous other classical authors accounts of religions other than Greek or Roman. Yet here, as might be expected, the historic knowledge was too slight to render the philosophical part of the work anything but superficial, although the descriptive part is still of value. The general attitude of the Greeks and Romans, who alone of the ancient world touched the subject of comparative religion, is one of contempt. This was succeeded by a not unnatural intolerance in the attitude of the Church Fathers and mediæval theologians. This attitude remained practically unchanged until the rise of skepticism in the eighteenth century. Yet there was no real progress in the study of religion, for dogmatism was succeeded by superficiality. It is noteworthy that the first real impulse to an historical study of religions came with the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. To this early period belong such books as the Pansebeia, or View of All Religions in the World, of Koss (London. 1653), and the Ceremonies and Religious Customs of the World, of Picart and Bernard (ib., 1733). This latter work is in a sense the forerunner of the historical method of religious study, and is far superior to one of its most important successors, the Origine de tous les cultes ou religion universelle of Dupuis (Paris, 1795). The real founder of the historical school, however, was Herder, who outlined the history of religion, so far as it was then possible, in his Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit, published in 1784, although his previous writings indicate that many of his ideas on this subject had been formulated much earlier. The year after Herder's Ideen saw the publication of Meiners's Grumdriss der Geschichte aller religionen, followed twenty-one years later by his Allgemeine kritische Geschichte der Religionen. In the decade 1821-31 the foundations of a scientific philosophy of religion were laid by Hegel in his Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Religion (not published, however, until 1832). The credit of inaugurating the study of comparative religion in a truly scientific spirit and method, however, must be given to Max Müller, even though his views are now in great part rejected in the light of later investigations. In a long series of volumes, including Lectures on the Science of Religion (London, 1872), Natural Religion (2d ed., ib., 1892), Physical Religion (ib., 1890), Anthropological Religion (ib. 1891), and Theosophy or Psychological Religion (2d ed., ib., 1899) he developed his system. He also aided in the establishment of the Hibbert Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion in 1878, and above all founded in 1879 the epoch-making series of translations entitled The Sacred Books of the East. A still greater name than Max Müller's is that of Tiele, of Leyden, whose Outlines of the History of Religion (translated from his Dutch Hoofdtrekken der Godsdienstæetenschap into English by Carpenter, London, 1877, 3d. German ed. by Weber and Söderblom. Breslau, 1903) is by all odds the best general survey of religions from an historical and descriptive point of view, while his Elements of the Science of Religion (Edinburgh, 1897-99) and his Geschiedenis van den Godsdienst in de oudheit tot op Alexander den Groote (Amsterdam, 1891-97) are no less authoritative. In France the study of comparative religion received a powerful impetus in the establishment in 1888 of the Musée Guimet. In America there is as yet little general interest in this science, although signs are not lacking that comparative religion will receive here also the attention which it merits both from a theoretical, an historical, and a practical point of view. The activity in the science, despite the lack of recognition on the part of many universities and the unfounded suspicion with which it is viewed by certain classes even of the educated, is most promising, among the eminent investigators being Réville, of France; Saussaye, of Holland; Achelis and Edmund Hardy, of Germany; Tylor and Frazer, of England; and Toy and Jastrow, of America.

The bibliography of comparative religion is very extensive. Among general works some of the most important are, in addition to those already mentioned: Lichtenberger, Encyclopédie des sciences rcligieuses (12 vols., Paris, 1877-83); Saussaye, Lehrbuch der Religionsgeschichte (2d ed.. Freiburg, 1897, contains also bibliographies); Orelli, Allgemeine Religionsgeschichte (ib., 1899); Jastrow, The Study of Religion (New York, 1901, contains an excellent bibliography); Tiele, Kompendium der Religionsgeschichte (3d. German ed., Breslau, 1903, containing abundant bibliographies). For