tion of
religion, it is due probably to the conception of evolution from which
it proceeds. It proceeds on the assumption that the process of
evolution exhibits the continuity of one and the same continuous line.
It ignores the radiative, dispersive movement of evolution in
different lines; and overlooks the fact that new forms of religion
are all re-births, renaissances, and spring not from one another, but
from the soul of man, in which is found the idea of God. It further
assumes not merely that there are errors but that there is no truth
whatever in the lowest, or the earliest, forms of religion; and that
therefore neither is there any truth in the highest. But this
assumption, if applied to the principles of thought, speech or action,
would equally prove thought to be irrational, speech unintelligible,
moral action absurd; and evolution would be the process by which this
fundamental irrationality, unintelligibility and absurdity was worked
out.

Either this is the conclusion, or some means must be sought whereby to
distinguish the evolution of religion from the evolution of thought,
speech and morals, and to show that--whereas in the case of the
latter, evolution is the process in which the principles whereon man
should think, speak and act, tend to manifest themselves with
increasing clearness--in the case of religion, there is no such
progressive revelation, and no first principle, or fundamental idea,
which all forms of religion seek to express. But any attempt to show
this is hopeless: the science of religion is engaged throughout in
ascertaining and comparing the ideas which the various races of men
have had of their gods; and in tracing the evolution of the idea of
God.

The science of religion, however, it may be said, is concerned
exclusively with the evolution, and not in the least with the value or
validity, of the idea. But neither, we must remember, is it concerned
to dispute its value or to deny its validity; and no man can help
drawing his own conclusions from the established fact that the idea is
to be found wherever man is to be found. If, however, by the idea of
God we mean simply an intellectual idea, merely a verbal proposition,
we shall be in danger of drawing erroneous conclusions. The historian
of religion, in discussing the idea of God, its manifestations and its
evolution, is bound to express himself in words, and to reduce what he
has to say to a series of verbal propositions. Nothing, t