The theories regarding the psycho logical origin and the essence of religion are numerous and divergent. It was common among the atheists of the 18th century to speak of religion as the in vention of individuals desirous of deceiv ing their fellowmen in order to further their own selfish and ambitious views. Feuerbach, Lange, Spencer, and others account for its appearance by imagina tion, illusion, or the misinterpretation of ordinary or exceptional phenomena. Some zealous supernaturalists have ar gued that it must have originated in a primitive revelation. It may be referred exclusively to the intellectual province of human nature. This mistake, however, is too gross to have been often com mitted, and is sufficiently refuted by the obvious consideration that the measure of religion is not the measure of in telligence or of knowledge. Hegel did not, as is often said, fall into the error of identifying religion with thought, but only emphasized strongly the importance of thought in religion. Peschel regards the principle of causality, and Max Muller the perception of the infinite, as the roots of religion. And it may well be admitted that without both of these intellectual principles religion would be impossible. But are they more than merely conditions of its appearance? The origin of religion is, of course. re ferred to intellect by those who hold that God is known intuitively, perceived directly, apprehended without medium; but both psychology and history, both internal analysis and external observa tion seem to disprove this hypothesis. Religion has often been resolved into feeling or sentiment. Thus Lucretius, Hobbes, and Strauss have traced it mainly to fear; the followers of Ritschl to a desire to secure life and its goods amidst the uncertainties and evils of earth; the disciples of Schlei ermacher to a feeling of absolute de pendence, of pure and entire passive ness; and others—s. g., Brinton and Newman Smyth—to the religious feeling regarded either as a distinct primary feeling or a peculiar compound feeling. Kant represented religion as essentially a sanction for duty, and Matthew Arnold has defined it as "morality touched by emotion," "ethics heightened, enkindled, lit up by feelings." This great diver sity of views of itself indicates what in vestigation is found to confirm—viz., that religion is a vast and complex thing, an inexhaustible field for psycho logical study. Almost all the views re ferred to have some truth in them, and most of them arc only false in so far as they assume themselves to be exclusively true. The whole nature of man has been formed for religion, and is en gaged and exercised in religion. Every principle of that nature which has been singled out as the root of religion has really contributed to its rise and de velopment. The study of religion as a process of mind, and of the factors which condition and determine its de velopment, is the special task of the psy chology of religion, a department of re search to which many contributions have been made since Hume initiated it in his "Natural History of Religion" (1759) by showing the importance of the dis tinction between the causes and the reasons of religion.
A religion is a group or whole of re ligious phenomena—of religious beliefs, practices, and institutions—so closely connected with one another as to be thereby differentiated from those of any other religion. Each religion has had a history and its rise and spread, forma tion and transformations, as a religion can only be truly traced by being his torically traced. Also religions are his torically connected. are related to one another, and have influenced one an other, in ways which may be discovered, and can only be discovered, by historical research. Hence the history of reli gions is also the history of religion, not an aggregation of the histories of particular religions, but a truly general history. Like the histories of art, industry, science, and society in gen eral, it is found on examination to have been a process of development in which each stage of religion has proceeded gradually from antecedent factors and conditions. The precise nature of the
development can only be ascertained by investigation of the history itself. No hypothesis of development should be assumed as a pre-supposition of such investigation. Naturalistic apriorisni is as illegitimate in historical inquiry as theological or metaphysical aprior ism. The history of religion is not only of great importance in itself, but indispensable to the right under standing of general history, of the his tory of art, of philosophy, etc. It has been studied with more zeal and success during the 19th century than in all the preceding ages. The history of religious beliefs is, of course, only a part of the history of religions. It is, however, dis tinguishable, though inseparable, from it, and is often and conveniently desig nated Comparative Theology. It com prehends comparative mythology and the history of doctrines, myths being beliefs which are mainly the products of im agination and doctrines of reflection.
The Psychology of Religion, the His tory of Religions, and Comparative The ology are clearly distinct, and ought not to be confounded. At the same time they are closely connected. They agree in that they are alike occupied with religion as an empirical fact. Hence they may be regarded as parts of a comprehensive science, to which it might be well to con fine the designation "Science of Re ligions," instead of using it in the vague and ambiguous way which is so common. Thus understood, the Science of Religions may be said to deal with religion as a phenomena of experience, whether out wardly manifested in history or inwardly realized in consciousness; to seek to de scribe and explain religious experience so far as it can be described and explained without transcending the religious ex perience itself. Its students have only to ascertain, analyze, explain, and ex hibit experienced fact. Were religion a physical fact, to study it merely as a fact would be enough. The astronomer, the naturalist, the chemist have no need to judge their facts; they have only to describe them, analyze them, and deter mine their relations. But it is otherwise with the students of religion, of moral ity, of art, of reasoning. They soon come to a point where they must be come judges of the phenomena and pronounce on their truth and worth. Ex perience in the physical sphere is experi ence and nothing more; experience fit the spiritual sphere is very often expe rience of what is irreverent and impious, immoral and vicious, ugly and erroneous, foolish or insane. Has the mind simply to describe and analyze, accept, and be content with such experience? Even the logician and the aesthetician will answer in the negative, will claim to judge their facts as conforming to or contravening the laws of truth and the ideals of art. Still more decidedly must the moralist and the student of religion so answer. Religion, then, is not completely studied when it is only studied historically. Hence it must be dealt with by other sciences or disciplines than those which are merely historical. What these are, and how they are related to religion, the writer has elsewhere endeavored to show.
All the particular theological sciences or disciplines treat of particular aspects of religion or of religion in particular ways. Their relationships to one an other can only be determined by their relationship to it. They can only be unified and co-ordinated in a truly or game manner by their due reference to it. When religion is studied not merely in particular aspects and ways, but in its unity and entirety, with a view to its comprehension in its essence and all essential relations, it is the object of the Philosophy of Religion. Though a distinct and essential department of philosophy, and the highest and most comprehensive theological science, the philosophy of religion could only appear in an independent and appropriate form when both philosophy and theology were highly developed. It is, therefore, of comparatively recent origin, and indeed was chiefly cultivated in Germany during the 19th century.