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Henricus Scholten, Translated by Francis T. Washburn

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Title: A Comparative View of Religions

Author: Johannes Henricus Scholten

Release Date: December 19, 2006 [eBook #20137]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

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A COMPARATIVE VIEW OF RELIGIONS.

Translated from the Dutch of

J. H. SCHOLTEN,
Professor at Leyden,

by Francis T. Washburn.

Reprinted by permission from "The Religious Magazine and Monthly
Review."
Boston: Crosby & Damrell, 100 Washington St. 1870.

A COMPARATIVE VIEW OF RELIGIONS.

INTRODUCTION.[1]

The conception of religion presupposes, _a_, God as object; _b_, man as
subject; _c_, the mutual relation existing between them. According to
the various stages of development which men have reached, religious
belief manifests itself either in the form of a passive feeling of
dependence, where the subject, not yet conscious of his independence,
feels himself wholly overmastered by the deity, or the object of
worship, as by a power outside of and opposed to himself; or, when the
feeling of independence has awakened, in a one-sided elevation of the
human, whereby man in worshiping a deity deifies himself. In the highest
stage of religious development, the most entire feeling of dependence is
united in religion with the strongest consciousness of personal
independence. The first of these forms is exhibited in the fetich and
nature-worship of the ancient nations; the second in Buddhism, and in
th