God, the Soul, the Future Life, Sin and Salvation, Human Duty, Prayer and Worship, Inspiration and Art. We consider what is the Idea of God in all religions, and ask how it began and in what way it was developed. In the same manner we seek to trace other phases of the religious life, from their simplest beginnings to their fullest

outcome.

In pursuing this course of thought I have been often called upon to discuss the religions of the primitive or childlike races, a department of the subject not treated in the first volume. The importance and value of researches in this direction have of late years been more fully recognized than formerly. "The time has long since passed," says Brinton, "at least among thinking men, when the religious legends of the lower races were looked upon as trivial fables, or as the inventions of the Father of Lies. They are neither the one nor the other. They express, in image and incident, the opinions of these races on the mightiest topics of human thought, on the origin and destiny of man, his motives for duty and his grounds for hope, and the source, history, and fate of external nature. Certainly the sincere expressions on this subject of even humble mem

1 American Hero-Myths, by David G. Brinton, 1882.

bers of the human race deserve our most respectful heed, and it may be that we shall discover in their crude or coarse narratives gleams of a mental light which their proud Aryan brethren have been long in coming to, or have not yet reached."

This class of primitive or childlike religions I have called Tribal, because they are usually developed by each tribe, and have not the characters of Ethnic or National religions, nor of Catholic or Universal religions. They show the first dawnings of the religious life with a singular uniformity, whether in the heart of Africa, among the islands of Polynesia, or within the Arctic Zone. The special race developments have not yet begun, and these primitive sentiments have not been differentiated under the formative influences of national life. As yet human nature is in its cradle, and the cry of the infant is the same all over the world. All this indicates that the law applies to religion which we find elsewhere, and that here too the progress of the race will be from monotony, through variety, to an ultimate harmony.

The present volume contains, as far as I know, the first attempt to trace these doctrines through all the principal religions of mankind. It is only an attempt, but it indicates at least, what I be

lieve to be the best way of understanding the value of any belief, that of comparative theology. How much light has been thrown on human culture by the works of Tylor, Lubbock, Waitz, Brinton, Bastian, Lecky, and others who have adopted to a greater or less extent the methods of comparison !

I cannot expect that the views taken in this book in regard to different religions will be universally accepted. Most of the questions treated in it are still subjects for inquiry, and specialists differ among themselves on some of the most essential points. Was the system of Zoroaster fundamentally a monotheism? Haug says it was; Lenormant and others tell us, that though on his way to this conception, he did not reach it. Was Buddhism a reaction against Brahmanism, as most writers suppose? Or was it a development of Brahmanism, as Oldenberg and Kuenen tell us? Probably it was both. If it did not seek to abolish castes in India, it ignored them, and admitted men of all castes to its order. If it did not re

ject the Gods of the Hindu Pantheon, it passed them by. It developed an entirely new side of life. It taught humanity instead of piety; it ascribed salvation, not to sacrifices and sacraments, but to the sight of the truth. I therefore

think I was right, when in the First Part of this work, I called Buddhism the Protestantism of the East.

In Chapter VI. I have suggested that there may be essential truth in the doctrine of Transmigration, once so generally believed. The modern doctrine of the evolution of bodily organisms is not complete, unless we unite with it the idea of a corresponding evolution of the spiritual monad, from which every organic form derives its unity. Evolution has a satisfactory meaning only when we admit that the soul is developed and educated by passing through many bodies, and not only accept the theory that our ancestors may have been apes or fishes, but the larger doctrine that we ourselves were probably once apes or fishes, and that we learned much in those conditions which is useful to us in our present forms.

I have added a list of some of the principal books on the subjects here treated, which have been published since the index of authors was prepared for the first part of this work.

This list begins with recent works on Buddhism. Then follow those on the Parsis and the ZendAvesta; next a few titles on Brahmanism; then on the Religions of Assyria and Babylon. The list ends with titles of books lately issued on Prim

itive Religions, the Beliefs of China, the origin and growth of all Religions, and works bearing on the general subject.

In selecting the titles on Assyria I have had the assistance of Professor David G. Lyon of Harvard College; and in regard to Buddhism, I have been aided by Charles R. Lanman, Professor of Sanskrit in the same university. I have not attempted to make any exhaustive list of references, but merely to indicate for young students, not specialists, some of the more important sources of informa tion.

Buddha, Sein Leben, Seine Lehre, Seine Gemeinde, von Dr. Hermann Oldenberg. Berlin, 1881.

Buddha, his Life, his Doctrine, his Order. (The same work translated by William Hoey), 1882.

Die Therapeuta und ihre Stellung. By P. E. Lucius. Strasburg, 1880.

Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion, as illustrated by some points in the History of Indian Buddhism. By J. W. Rhys Davids. Being the Hibbert lectures, 1881. The Buddhist Scriptures in Pâli. The Vinaya Pitakam. Edited by Dr. H. Oldenberg. Five vols.

The Angel-Messiah of Buddhists, Essenes and Christians. By Ernest de Bunsen. (London, 1880).

[This book is largely quoted by those who would derive the facts in the Gospels from the Buddhist legends. Its value in the eyes of a real scholar appears in the following extract from Kuenen's Hibbert Lectures: