leased by the death of the tortfeasor, or a debt released by the discharge in bankruptcy of the debtor, as well as a bond or a right of entry upon land released by the deed of the person claiming the right. Lord Coke, in his commentary upon Littleton, enumerates a considerable number and variety of releases in vogue in his day, most of which have, in the growing simplification of the law of real property, become obsolete. We may, perhaps, conveniently distinguish two separate and distinct types of releases as still existing, viz. the ordinary release of a debt or obligation and the release of an interest in or claim to land. The former of these may be effected by act of the parties, or by operation of law-as where a contract for personal services is terminated by the death of a party thereto. At common law, however, the forgiveness of a debt, whether complete or partial, is not legally binding if made by parol or simple contract, but requires a release under seal to render it effectual and irrevocable.

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The second form of release above referred to is best described as a form of conveyance of real property at common law. Its distinguishing characteristic is the fact that it is in and by itself not available for effecting a veyance to a stranger, i.e. to one having interest in the land in question (for which purpose the feoffment or the grant must be resorted to), but only to one in privity of estate, i.e. having an interest with the releasor in the same parcel of land, as a wife to the husband's grantee, or a landlord, remainderman, or person asserting any other claim in relation to the premises to a tenant in possession. The act of the tenant in giving up his estate to the landlord is not a release, but, involving as it does a transfer of the possession, is conceived of as of a totally different character, and is effected by a distinct form of conveyance, called a surrender.

In this form of a conveyance of the landlord's estate to his tenant in possession the release played a distinguished part in the history of conveyancing. In the effort to attain to a simpler and less notorious method of conveying freehold estates than the ancient and cumbrous process of livery of seisin, the lease and release were ingeniously combined in a single transaction. Thus, if the land to be sold by A to B was first leased to B for a year, B would by taking possession of the land come into the requisite privity of estate with A to enable the latter to complete the transfer of title by releasing his reversion to B. Consult Blackstone and Kent, Commentaries. See also PROPERTY; LEASE AND RELEASE; CONVEYANCE; DEED; GRANT, and the authorities there referred to.

Analogous to the first form of release above described, but still operating as a common-law conveyance, is its use to convey doubtful or precarious interests in land or rights in land which do not rise to the dignity of estates, as a contingent remainder to the freeholder who was seised of the land, or the right of a disseisee to the disseisor or other person seised of the land. See DISSEISIN; ENTRY, Right of; REMAINDER.

In form the deed of release is substantially reproduced in the modern quitclaim deed. See QUITCLAIM.

RELIANCE. An American racing yacht, and the successful defender of the America's Cup in

the International yacht races of 1903. She was built by Herreshoff, for a syndicate of American yachtsmen, represented by C. Oliver Iselin. Her measurements were: Length over all, 143.69; water line, 89.66; sail area as per rule, 16,159.45; sail area, 127.12. Owing to her large sail area she was required to give the challenger Shamrock III. (q.v.) a time allowance of one minute and fifty-seven seconds. She was sailed by Captain Barr, the skipper of the old Columbia, and defeated her opponent in the first three races of the series as follows: August 22d, by 7 min. utes and 3 seconds, corrected time; August 26th, by 1 minute and 19 seconds, corrected time; September 3, the challenger got lost in the fog and did not finish the race. Reliance alone completed the course.

RELICS (OF., Fr. relique, from Lat. reliquiæ, remains, from relinquere, to leave behind, from re-, back again, anew linquere, to leave, Gk. heine, leipein, Skt. ric, to leave). In ecclesiastical usage, the remains of the bodies of saints; more loosely, objects connected with the earthly life of Christ or of the saints. At an early period miracles are described as connected with relics, as in the Old Testament (II. Kings xiii. 21). Saint Ambrose tells of a blind man's sight being restored by his touching the bodies of the mar tyrs Gervasius and Protasius, and similar wonders are detailed by other saints. Altars were early erected over the tombs of the martyrs, and the present practice of the Roman Catholic Church requires the inclusion of some relic or relics within every altar to be consecrated.

The veneration of relics found no important early adversary. One of the treatises of Saint Jerome, indeed, is directed against the objections of Vigilantius on this point; but even the Iconoclasts, while vehemently repudiating the use of images, admitted the veneration of relics, and, with the exception of the Waldenses, Wiclif, and some others, it was practically unchallenged until the sixteenth century, when Protestants generally repudiated it entirely as superstitious. The decree of the Council of Trent connects the question with the general one of the veneration to be paid to the saints, and regards the relics of the saints not as possessing any intrinsic virtue, but as instruments through which God Various alleged relics bestows benefits on men. of Mohammed and other Moslem worthies are preserved at Mecca, Medina, Constantinople, and other places; and several sanctuaries in India are supposed to be the resting-places of relics of Buddha. See SAINT; CROSS; HOLY COAT; PILGRIM.

RELICT PLANTS (OF. relict, from Lat. relictus, p.p. of relinquere, to leave behind). Plants of very restricted distribution, but formerly more widespread. For example, the big trees of California are the remnants of a former widely distributed group. The term may also be applied locally to species which belong to a former topographic condition when they were abundant. Naturally or artificially reclaimed swamps may yet retain isolated relict plants.

RELIEF (Lat. relevamentum). An incident of the feudal tenure of lands. It consisted in the obligation of the heir to redeem the land from the lord of whom it was held, in order to make good his right of inheritance. Unlike the

parative study in the strict sense of the term may, technically, be static. The value of such an investigation is, however, so much inferior scientifically to evolutionary comparison that it may practically be ignored. By far the greater number of investigations make their studies of comparative religion historical or evolutionary. Such discussions alone lead to the final object of the science. This object is to investigate the nature and development of religious beliefs and to discover if possible the origin of religion itself. Comparative religion therefore ranks as one of the historical sciences.

SO

DEFINITION OF RELIGION. Nowhere is definition more difficult than in the sphere of religion. The manifestations are so varied, and the causes, where they can be traced, are so complex, that almost no definition of religion can be given which is altogether free from objection. The definition which seems on the whole least open to adverse criticism is as follows: Religion is the view held by man of an intelligent being or beings which is or are, or which he conceives to be, superhuman, and of the relation, modifiable by his own agency in certain respects and by certain means, which he sustains toward the being or beings in question. This definition recognizes the two-fold aspect of religion, which accounts for part of the complexity of religious phenomena, the theoretical and the practical. The theoretical side of religion is the view held by man regarding the nature and character of the superhuman being or beings in which he believes. The practical side is the power which such being or beings exert over him and the power which he has or may acquire over them. UNIVERSALITY OF RELIGION. The statement which is still made, though with decreasing frequency, that there are races or tribes without religion is almost certainly false. It may be true that many peoples seem to possess no religion, either because these religions are obscure as to pass unnoticed, or because they are contemptuously rejected as false. Yet even the scientific investigator may be misled in this matter. In the first place, the person questioned as to his religion may not, and in the case of savages often does not, understand the questions which are asked him. His answers, therefore, are misleading. It must also be remembered that one questioned concerning his religion will sometimes willfully give a false answer, either because he regards the inquiry as foolish, impertinent, or tiresome, or because he does not dare to reveal his religion. In giving a knowledge of his religion, one gives a part of himself, and the power thus gained by another may be used to his own detriment. If these obstacles to an accurate knowledge of a religion exist in the case of living faiths, they hold to a far greater degree in the study of extinct religions or extinct phases of them. The ancient writers who describe foreign religions were either little acquainted with them and unscientifically trained, as were even Herodotus and Plutarch, or were contemptuous and unsympathetic, as was Tacitus. Moreover, the sacred books of religions give us only a partial view of their own faiths. They represent only the officially sanctioned religion, while the popular deviations from these book-religions are either ignored altogether, or mentioned with disparagement and hostility, or must be partially reconstructed

from chance allusions scattered through the canonical works. There is also a marked tendency both in ancient and in modern investigators of religion to interpret foreign religions in terms of their own, thus leading to false identifications and to attributions of concepts to religions which they may not contain. The student of religion must also guard against mistaking an idea previously imported into a religion from a foreign source for an integra part of the faith which he studies.

CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. Still more difficult than definition of religions is classification. While one may make rough distinctions between various religions, hard and fast lines of demarcation can seldom be drawn, for religions often overlap one another in attributes common to both. Nor is it easy to classify a religion according to its salient feature. To say that Greek religion is the cult of the beautiful, or that Roman religion is legalistic, or that American religions are animistic, does not adequately describe them, for they represent the culminations of long evolutions, in which many factors from many sources have coöperated. Animism, totemism, ghost-worship, nature-worship, and other factors, all combine in different proportions. Several classifications, however, have been proposed. Of them all, the most simple and the most worthless divides religions into true and false, the first class holding the single religion adopted by him who makes the classification, the latter class containing all the rest. There are a number of other classifications which are equally unsatisfactory. Among these may be enumerated the division of religions on a linguistic basis into Indo-Germanic, Semitic, and Turanian. This classification, proposed by Max Müller, proceeds on the false premise that religion and linguistic affinity are one. A religion may indeed originate in a certain race, but it may spread with equal facility to other races, and even to other climates and entirely different systems of civilization. The division into national and universal or international religions, advocated by Kuenen, is also objectionable, since there is no real line of demarcation between the two. Comparatively primitive religions may be international, on account both of their catholicity and of the absence of any national idea, while very advanced religions, as Zoroastrianism, may be strictly national, although apparently intended to be international in scope. Hegel attempted a classification, in four divisions. The most primitive faiths, or nature religions, he regarded as spontaneous. To them he opposed the religions of spiritual individuality, which was differentiated from nature religions by the presence of reason and meditation. Within the religions of spiritual individualities there are three divisions: First, the religion of majesty, where the divine overwhelms the human; second, the religion of beauty, where the divine blends with the human; and third, the religion of design, where a divine purpose in the universe is recognized. The increased knowledge of the evolution of religion since Hegel's time has rendered this view of his useless. A marked advance was the classification of Hartmann, who made a broad division into naturalism and supranaturalism. Naturalism is characterized by a belief that deities rule in the world and require material representations, while in supra

naturalism the deities rule over the world, and are freed from the necessity of representation. In the former class are primitive religions and such advanced ones as the Greek, Roman, Teutonic, and Egyptian, while in the second category come, among others, Buddhism, Judaism, and Mohammedanism. The final stage is a monism where the absolute spirit is a unity which is the absolute source and being of the universe. The chief weakness of the system is the tendency already noted to characterize religions only by salient features, without taking into account phases equally important though less obtrusive. A classification which combines the historical and philosophical points of view was prepared by Réville. Making a broad division into polytheistic and monotheistic religions, he included in the first category primitive nature religions, animism, and fetishism. These were followed by national mythological religions, such as the Chinese, Egyptian, Babylonian, Teutonic, Celtic, Greek, and Roman. The fourth stage is characterized by the legal element, as seen in Brahmanism, and here he also reckoned the Chinese systems of Confucius and Lao Tse. The highest point of polytheism was reached in his opinion by Buddhism. The monotheistic religions, which compose his second main division, are Judaism, Mohammedanism, and Christianity. Against this classification may be alleged that (1) there is no such sharp dividing line between animism, fetishism, and mythology as is here implied, and (2) the demarcation between polytheism and monotheism is evanescent. In the religions of Egypt, Babylonia, India, and Greece, which were admittedly polytheistic, a monotheistic trend, especially among philosophers, was marked, and conversely, in religions essentially monotheistic, such as Zoroastrianism, there is a tendency toward reversion to or survival of polytheistic cults. The important step in advance in Réville's classification is his recognition of the importance of the legal factor. Tiele set up a scale of primitive, naturalistic, animistic, national, polytheistic, nomistic, and universal religions. This scheme later was somewhat modified by him, and he finally favored a division into nature religions and ethical religions. Still another classification was proposed by Jastrow. Its division is fourfold, into the religions of savages, of primitive culture, of advanced culture, and those religions whose conscious ideal is the coextensiveness of religion with life and complete harmony between the doctrines and the practices of religion. This classification, like the others, is unclear in the distinction between the first two divisions, while the third and fourth in like manner are somewhat arbitrary. It seems, however, superior on the whole to all its predecessors, despite the credit which the classifications of Tiele and Réville deserve. Adopting this system of Jastrow's, then, with the modification of combining his first two divisions, the broad outlines of the principal forms of religion may be sketched, while the detailed treatment both of individual religions and of numerous special phases of comparative religion will be found under separate titles.

THE RELIGIONS OF SAVAGES AND OF PRIMITIVE CULTURE. The religion of the savage, connoting by this term man in the pre-cultural stage, is almost impossible to determine. The difficulties already enumerated oppose the solution of this

VOL. XVII.-2.

problem. It is, moreover, a question whether pre-cultural man, uninfluenced by cultural races, however primitive, now exists. Only within comparatively recent times has the intercommunication of ideas between the less civilized races both of ancient and modern times received due recognition. Even the most primitive religions known, such as the Australian, belong to tribes which have begun the cultural stage. We are reduced, therefore, for our knowledge of savage religions to deductions which may be made from more advanced cults, especially those of primitive peoples. This uncertainty is the more unfortunate, since it is here if anywhere, from a scientific point of view, that we are to seek the origin or origins of religion. The most that can be said of this most primitive stage seems to be that there was probably an innate germ of religious thought, a vague personification of the powers of nature, and the first beginnings of a belief in ghosts.

Turning to the religions of primitive culture, we find a wide range of cults in all parts of the world, of most varied grades. Among the most important may be mentioned the Polynesian and Australian, the diverse native religions of Africa, the Finno-Tataric, many phases of Hindu religion, especially among the Dravidians, the Mongolian Shamanism, the ancient Teutonic religions, and the American religions, including those of Mexico and Peru. The diversity of the primitive cults is evident, ranging from the rude religions of the Hottentots and Blackfellows to the elaborate mythology of Polynesia and the developed ritual and priesthood of Mexico. The religions of primitive culture, however, may all be characterized by at least four points in common: animism in belief, magic in practice, and in worship nature-worship and ancestor-worship! Of these the most primitive seems to be animism. This may be defined as a belief which ascribes conscious life to every natural object which manifests vitality or force in any way. It is the theory evolved by primitive man to account for the various natural phenomena by which he is surrounded. The ascription of life analogous to his own to trees, rivers, fire, and the like is not necessarily religious in itself, but the transition from animism in theory to animism in cult seems to involve a recognition of their superhuman powers. If a river is endowed with life as is a man, it has power to benefit, as in irrigation, or to injure, as in flood, and it becomes necessary either to propitiate the river that it may be bounteous in its waters, or to induce it to refrain from destructive floods. The primitive means of controlling the powers of nature is by magic. If the desired results do not follow the performance of magic, the fault is not with the magic itself. Either wrong magic has been employed for the end in view, or there is a strong counter-magic at work, which must first be overcome if possible. For magic is, in its last analysis, the science of primitive man, the cause, real or supposed, of a given result, which must, by its performance, produce again the desired result, and this fact accounts for its early importance and its extreme tenacity.

Within the sphere of religion proper we have, as common to all religions of primitive culture, nature-worship and ancestor-worship, the developed forms of the beliefs in animism with magic and ghosts with magic respectively. To