the various
forms of religion, the differences between them, and the relative
values of those differences.

It may perhaps be asked, Why should those differences exist? And if
the question should be put, I am inclined to say that to give the
answer is beyond the scope of the applied science of religion. The
method of comparison assumes that the differences do exist, and it
cannot begin to be employed unless and until they exist. They are and
must be taken for granted, at any rate by the applied science of
religion, and if the method of comparison is to be set to work.
Indeed, if we may take the principle of evolution to be the
differentiation of the homogeneous, we may go further and say that the
whole theory of evolution, and not merely a particular historic
science, such as the science of religion, {24} postulates
differentiation and the principle of difference, and does not explain
it,--evolution cannot start, the homogeneous cannot be other than
homogeneous, until the principle of difference and the power of
differentiation is assumed.

That the science of religion at the end leaves untouched those
differences between religions which it recognised at the beginning, is
a point on which I insisted, as against those who unwarrantably
proclaim the science to have demonstrated that all religions alike are
barbarisms or survivals of barbarism. It is well, therefore, to bear
that fact in mind when attempts are made to explain the existence of
the differences by postulating a period when they were non-existent.
That postulate may take form in the supposition that originally the
true religion alone existed, and that the differences arose later.
That is a supposition which has been made by more than one people, and
in more ages than one. It carries with it the consequence that the
history--it would be difficult to call it the evolution and impossible
to call it the progress--of religion has been one of degradation
generally. Owing, however, to the far-reaching and deep-penetrating
influence of the theory of evolution, it has of late grown {25}
customary to assume that the movement, the course of religious history,
has been in the opposite direction; and that it has moved upwards from
the lowest forms of religion known to us, or from some form analogous
to the lowest known forms, through the higher to the highest. This
second theory, however different in its arrangement of the facts from
the Golden Age theory first