LIBRARY OF PRINCETON J THEOLOGICAL SE ?Y_ THE HIBBEET LECTURES. oxford: BY E. PICKARD HALL, M.A., AND J. H. STACY, PRINTERS TO THE UNIVERSITY. LECTURES ON THE ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF RELIGION AS ILLUSTRATED BY THE RELIGIONS OF INDIA. DELIVERED IN THE CHAPTER HOUSE, WESTMINSTER ABBEY, IN APRIL, MAY, AND JUNE, 1878. F. MAXMULLER, M.A Second Edition. LONDON: LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. WILLIAMS AND NORGATE. 1878. [All rights reserved] 2Fo l&tv WHOSE DEAR MEMORY ENCOURAGED, DIRECTED, AND SUPPORTED ME IN WRITING THESE LECTURES, Cfjeg arc nofo tootcateo AS A MEMORIAL OF A FATHER'S LOVE. PREFACE. The Hibbert Trustees, having requested the publication of these lectures, desire to state some of the circumstances which led to their delivery. The Founder of the Trust, Mr. Robert Hibbert, who died in 1849, bequeathed a sum of money with direc- tions that the income should be applied in a manner indicated in general terms by him, but with large latitude of interpretation to the Trustees. The par- ticulars are stated in a Memoir of Mr. Hibbert printed in 1874. 1 For many years the Trustees appropriated their funds almost entirely to the higher culture of stu- dents for the Christian ministry, thus carrying out the instruction to adopt such scheme as they ' in their uncontrolled discretion from time to time' should deem 'most conducive to the spread of Christianity in its most simple and intelligible form, and to the unfettered exercise of private judgment in matters of religion.' In succeeding years other applications of the fund have been suggested to the Trustees, some of which have been adopted. One of the latest has been the institution of a Hibbert Lecture on a plan similar to that of the ' Bampton'and ' Congregational' Lectures. 1 Memoir of Robert Hibbert, Esq., Founder of the Hibbert Trust, with a sketch of its history, by Jerom Murch, one of the Trustees. Vlll PREFACE. This proposal, conveyed in a letter which is appended to the present statement, was made by a few eminent divines and laymen belonging to different churches but united in a common desire for the ' really capable and honest treatment of unsettled problems in theology.' After much deliberation the Trustees considered that if they could secure the assistance of suitable Lecturers, they would be promoting the object of the Testator, by courses on the various historical religions of the world. They were so fortunate as to obtain the consent of Professor Max Muller to begin the series, and to take as his subject the religions of India. They were also greatly indebted to the Dean of Westminster, who procured for them from the Board of Works, the use of the Chapter-house of the Abbey. On the announcement of the Lectures, there was great difficulty in meeting the numerous appli- cations for tickets, which was only overcome by the kind consent of Professor Max Muller to deliver each lecture twice. Encouraged by the success of this first course, the Trustees have arranged for a second. It will be undertaken by M. le Page Eenouf, Her Majesty's Inspector of Schools, and the subject will be the Eeligions of Egypt ; the time proposed is between Easter and Whitsuntide of next year. J. M. Cranwells, Bath, October 5th, 1878, MEMOEIAL FOE THE FOUNDATION OF A HIBBEET LECTUEE. To the Hibbert Trustees. Gentlemen, We, the undersigned, beg to draw your attention to the fol- lowing statement : — From the fact that all the chief divinity schools of this country are still laid under traditional restraint, from which other branches of inquiry have long been emancipated, the discussion of theological questions is habitually affected by ecclesiastical interests and party predilections, and fails to receive the intellectual respect and con- fidence which are readily accorded to learning and research in any other field. There is no reason why competent knowledge and critical skill, if encouraged to exercise themselves in the dis- interested pursuit of truth, should be less fruitful in religious than in social and physical ideas ; nor can it be doubted that an audience is ready to welcome any really capable and honest treat- ment of unsettled problems in theology. The time, we think, is come, when a distinct provision for the free consideration of such problems by scholars qualified to handle them may be expected to yield important results. Notwithstanding the traditional re- straints which in England have interfered with an unprejudiced treatment of the theory and history of religion, a rich literature has poured in from the liberal schools of Germany and Holland, and has more or less trained and quickened the mind of the present generation, so that there cannot now be wanting qualified labourers in that re-organization of religious thought which is now taking place in our midst. Change of sentiment and feeling cannot be simply imported from abroad : till they pass through the minds of such men they have no local colouring and take no natural growth ; and to modify English opinion and institutions there is need of English scholars. That need we think your encouragement can do something to supply. Such institutions as the Bampton Lecture at the University of Oxford, and the younger foundation of the Congregational Lecture among one branch of orthodox Noncon- formists, have done much to direct the public mind to certain well-defined views of Christianity. We believe that a similar in- stitution might prove of high service in promoting independence of judgment combined with religious reverence by exhibiting clearly from time to time some of the most important results of recent study in the great fields of philosophy, of Biblical criticism, and comparative theology. "We venture, therefore, to ask you to consider the expediency of establishing a ' Lecture ' under the name of the ' Hibbert Lecture,' or any other designation that may seem appropriate. A course, consisting of not fewer than six lectures, might be delivered every two or three years in London, or in the chief towns of Great Britain in rotation. After delivery, the course should be published under the direction of the managers of the lecture ; and thus by degrees the issues of unfettered inquiry would be placed in a com- pact form before the educated public. (Signed) James Martineau. Robert Wallace. Arthur P. Stanley. Lewis Campbell. John H. Thom. John Caird. Charles Wicksteed. William Gaskell. William B. Carpenter. Charles Beard. F. Max Muller. T. K. Cheyne. George W. Cox. A. H. Sayce. J. Muir. Russell Martineau. John Tulloch. James Drummond. TABLE OF CONTENTS, LECTURE I. and The Pekception of the Infinite. Problem of the origin of religion Strauss : Have we still any religion . Antiquity of religion Science of religion . Difference between ancient and modern belief Definitions of religion Etymological meaning of religio Historical aspect of religion Definitions of religion by Kant and Fichte Religion, with or without worship Definition of Schleiermacher (dependence (freedom) Comte and Feuerbach Difficulty of defining religion Specific characteristic of religion Religion as a subjective faculty for the ap infinite . The three functions of sense, reason, and fai The meaning of infinite Can the finite apprehend the infinite . Conditions accepted on both sides Apprehension of the infinite i. The infinitely great . 2. The infinitely small . Growth of the idea of the infinite ]^o finite without an infinite of Hegel prehension Lth PAGE I 2 4 5 8 9 10 13 M 16 of th 19 20 21 21 22 26 27 29 31 35 35 38 43 45 Xll CONTENTS. LECTURE II. Is Fetishism a Primitive Form of Religion? The first impulse to the perception of the infinite Mana, a Melanesian name for the infinite Fetishism, the original form of all religion . ,> De Brosses, the inventor of fetishism . — Origin of the name of fetish Wrong extension of the name fetish . Usefulness of the study of savage tribes Frequent retrogression in religion Difficulty of studying the religion of savages Language of savages ..... Numerals of savages ..... No history among savages .... No morals among savages .... Religion universal among savages Study of the religion of literary nations Study of the religion of savages . Influence of public opinion on travellers Absence of recognised authorities among savages Authority of priests .... Unwillingness of savages to talk of religion Wide extension of the meaning of fetish Antecedents of fetishism .... Ubiquity of fetishism .... No religion consists of fetishism only . Higher elements in African religion. Waitz Zoolatry ....... Psycholatry ...... Many-sidedness of African religion Supposed psychological necessity of fetishism Whence the supernatural predicate of a fetish Accidental origin of fetishism Are savages like children .... The four steps ...... Fetishism not a primary form of religion CONTENTS. Xlll LECTURE III. The Ancient Liteeatuee of India, so fae as it supplies Mateeials foe the Study of the Oeigin of Religion. Usefulness of the study of literary religions Growth of religious ideas in Judaism, Zoroastrianism, &c. Growth of religion in India ..... Right position of the Veda in the science of religion Discovery of Sanskrit literature ..... Buddhism the frontier between ancient and modern literature in India ....... The Veda proclaimed as revealed .... Historical character of the Vedic language . The four strata of Vedic literature .... I. Sutra period, 500 B.C. ..... II. Brahmana period, 600-800 B.C. III. Mantra period, 800— 1000 B.C. IV. iTAandas period, 1000-10 10 B.C. . The Veda handed down by oral tradition Postscript to the third lecture ..... PAGE 128 129 I 3 I 132 J 33 *34 136 142 145 M5 149 150 151 153 159 LECTURE IV. The Woeship of Tangible, Semi-tangible, and Intangible Objects. Evidence of religion never entirely sensuous . . .168 External revelation . . . . . . . .169 Internal revelation . . . . . . . .170 The senses and their evidence . . . . . .172 The meaning of manifest . . . . . . 173 Division of sense-objects into tangible and semi-tangible . 174 Trees 175 Mountains . . . . . . . . .176 Rivers . . . . . . . . . .176 The Earth 177 Semi-tangible objects 178 XIV CONTENTS. the character of their god* Intangible objects Testimonies of the ancients as to Testimony of the Veda Testimony of the undivided Aryan language Origin of language Early concepts . Everything named as active Active does not mean human Grammatical gender . Auxiliary verbs AS, to breathe . BHU, to grow . VAS, to dwell . Primitive expression . Likeness, originally conceived as negation Standing epithets ..... Tangible objects among" the Vedic deities . Semi-tangible objects among the Vedic deities Fire The Sun . The Dawn Audible objects among the Vedic Thunder .... Wind .... Marutas, the storm-gods . The Rain and the Rainer . Vedic pantheon The Devas The visible and the invisible deities PAGE 179 181 182 183 183 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 192 193 194 195 198 199 z<*S 207 208 209 209 210 21 1 211 212 213 214 LECTURE V. The Ideas of Infinity and Law Nihil in fide quod non ante fuerit in sensu Theogony of the Veda The infinite in its earliest conception . Aditi, the infinite .... Aditi not a modern deity . 218 224 225 227 228 CONTENTS. XV Natural origin of Aditi Darkness and sin Immortality . Other religious ideas in the Vedi The idea of law The Sanskrit 7^'ta . The original meaning of Rita Story of Sarama Rita,, the sacrifice The development of Rita, . Difficulty of translating Was Rita, a common Aryan concept Rita, is Asha in Zend PAGE 228 23I 232 233 235 237 239 24O 244 244 245 246 249 LECTURE VI. On Henotheism, Polytheism, Monotheism, and Atheism. Is monotheism a primitive form of religion The science of language and the science of religion The predicate of God ... The new materials supplied by the Veda Henotheism ....•• The Sun in his natural aspects . The Sun as a supernatural power The Sun in a secondary position The Sky as Dyaus, or the Illuminator Struggle for supremacy between Dyaus and Indra Hymn to Indra, as a supreme god Hymn to Varima as a supreme god . Henotheism, the dialectic period of religion The supremacy of different Devas Further development of henotheism . Tendency towards monotheism . Visvakarman, the maker of all things Pra#apati, the lord of creatures . Tendency towards atheism Faith in Indra, doubts about Indra . Difference between honest and vulgar atheism 254 255 258 259 260 260 264 270 276 278 280 284 285 287 289 292 293 294 298 300 303 XVI CONTENTS. LECTURE VII. Philosophy and Religion. Collapse of the gods v The object of divine appellation Neuter names higher than masculine or feminine Atman, the subjective self . Atman, the objective self . The philosophy of the Upanishads Pra#apati and Indra . Y%navalkya and Maitreyi Yama and Na&iketas . Religion of the Upanishads Evolution in Vedic religion The four castes The four stages or Asrarnas First stage, Studentship Second stage, Married Life Third stage, Retirement . Life in the forest The end .... Phases of religious thought Retrospect PAGE 3n 312 313 314 3 J 7 3i8 327 332 337 339 34i 343 343 345 349 354 360 362 372 Index 379 THE PERCEPTION OF THE INFINITE. The Problem of the Origin of Religion. HOW is it that we have a religion? This is a question which has not been asked for the first time in these latter days, but it is, nevertheless, a question which sounds startling even to ears that have been hardened by the din of many battles, fought for the conquest of truth. How it is that we exist, how it is that we perceive, how it is that we form concepts, how it is that we compare percepts and concepts, add and subtract, multiply and divide them — all these are problems with which everybody is more or less familiar, from the days in which he first opened the pages of Plato or Aristotle, of Hume or Kant. Sensation, perception, imagination, reason- ing, everything in fact which exists in our own con- sciousness, has had to defend the right and reason of its existence ; but the question, Why we believe, why we are, or imagine we are conscious of things which we can neither perceive with our senses, nor con- ceive with our reason — a question, it would seem more natural to ask than any other — has but seldom received, even from the greatest philosophers, that attention which it seems so fully to deserve. / B LECTURE I. Strauss: Have we still any Religion? What can be less satisfactory than the manner in which this problem has lately been pushed into the foreground of popular controversy? Strauss, in many respects a most acute reasoner, puts before us in his last work, « The Old and the New Faith; the question, 'Have we still any religion V To a challenge put in this form, the only answer that could be given would be an appeal to 'statistics ; and here we should soon be told that, out of a hundred thousand people, there is hardly one who professes to be without religion. If another answer was wanted, the question ought to have been put in a different form. Strauss ought before all things to have told us clearly, what he himself understands by religion. He ought to have defined religion both in its psychological and .historical development. But what does he do instead % He simply takes the old definition which Schleiermacher gave of religion, viz. that it consists in a feeling of absolute de- pendence, and he supplements it by a definition of Feuerbach's, that the essence of all religion is covet- ousness, which manifests itself in prayer, sacrifice, and faith. He then concludes, because there is less of prayer, crossing, and attending mass in our days than in the middle ages, that therefore, there is little left of real piety and religion. I have used, as much as possible, Strauss's own words. But where has Strauss or anybody else proved that true religion manifests itself in prayer, crossing, and attending mass only, and that all who do not pray, who do not cross themselves, and who do not THE PERCEPTION OF THE INFINITE. 3 attend mass, have no longer any religion at all, and no belief in God] If we read on, we are almost tempted to admit that M. Eenan was right in saying that those poor Germans try very hard to be irreligious and atheistical, but never succeed. Strauss says : ' The world is to us the workshop of the Eational and the Good. That on which we feel ourselves absolutely dependent is by no means a brute power, before which we must bow in silent resignation. It is order and law, reason and good- ness, to which we surrender ourselves with loving confidence. In our inmost nature we feel a kinship between ourselves and that on which we depend. In our dependence we are free, and pride and humility, joy and resignation, are mingled together in our feeling for all that exists/ If that is not religion, how is it to be called? The whole argument of Strauss amounts, in fact, to this. He retains religiomas the feeling of depen- dence, in the full sense assigned to it by Schleier- macher, but he rejects the element added by Feuerbach, namely, the motive of covetousness, as, both untrue, and unworthy of religion. Strauss himself is so completely in the dark as to the true essence of religion that when, at the end of the second chapter of his book, he asks himself whether he still has a religion, he can only answer, 'Yes, or No, according as you understand it.' Yes, but this is the very point which ought to have been determined first, namely, what we ought to understand by religion. And here I answer that in order to understand what religion is, we must first of all see what it has been, and how it has come to be what it is. B 2 LECTURE I. Antiquity of Religion. Eeligion is not a new invention. It is, if not as old as the world, at least as old as the world we know. As soon almost as we know anything of the thoughts and feelings of man, we find him in possession of religion, or rather possessed by religion. The oldest literary documents are almost every- where religious. ' Our earth,' as Herder 1 says, 'owes the seeds of all higher culture to religious tradition, whether literary or oral/ Even if we go beyond the age of literature, if we explore the deepest levels of human thought, we can discover, in the crude ore which was made to supply the earliest coins or counters of the human mind, the presence of religious ingredients. Before the Aryan languages separated — and who is to tell how many thousand years before the first hymn of the Veda or the first line of Homer that ethnic schism may have happened? — there existed in them an ex- pression for light, and from it, from the root div 9 to shine, the adjective deva had been formed, meaning originally 'bright/ Afterwards this word deva was applied, as a comprehensive designation, to all the bright powers of the morning and the spring, as opposed to all the dark powers of the night and the winter: but when we meet with it for the first time in the oldest literary documents, it is already so far removed from this its primitive etymological meaning, that in the Veda there are but few passages where we can with certainty 1 Herder, c Ideen zur Gescliichte der Menscliheit,' 9. Buch, p. 130 (ed. Brockbaus). THE PERCEPTION OF THE INFINITE. 5 translate it still by 'bright/ The bright dawn is addressed in the Veda as devi ushas, but it must remain doubtful whether the old poets still felt in that address the etymological meaning of bright- ness, or whether we ought not to translate deva in the Veda, as dens in Latin, by God, however difficult we may find it to connect any definite meaning with such a translation. Still, what we know for certain, is that deva came to mean ' god/ because it originally meant ' bright/ and we cannot doubt that something beyond the meaning of bright- ness had attached itself to the word deva, before the ancestors of the Indians and Italians broke up from their common home. Thus, whether we descend to the lowest roots of our own intellectual growth, or ascend to the loftiest heights of modern speculation, everywhere we find religion as a power that conquers, and conquers even those who think that they have conquered it. Science of Religion. Such a power did not escape the keen-eyed philosophers of ancient Greece. They, to whom the world of thought seems to have been as serene and transparent as the air which revealed the sea, the shore, and the sky of Athens, were startled at a very early time by the presence of religion, as by the appearance of a phantom which they could not explain. Here was the beginning of the science of religion, which is not, as has often been said, a science of to-day or of yesterday. The theory on the origin of religion put forward by Feuerbach in his work 'On the Essence of Christi- 6 LECTURE I. anity,' which sounds to us like the last note of modern despair, was anticipated more than two thousand years ago by the philosophers of Greece. With Feuerbach religion is a radical evil, inherent in mankind — the sick heart of man is the source of all religion, and of all misery. With Herakleitos, in the sixth century B.C., religion is a disease, though a sacred disease 1 . Such a saying, whatever we may think of its truth, shows, at all events, that religion and the origin of religious ideas had formed the subject of deep and anxious thought at the very beginning of what we call the history of philosophy. I doubt, however, whether there was in the sayings of Herakleitos the same hostile spirit against all religion as that which pervades the writings of Feuerbach. The idea that to believe is meritorious, was not an ancient Greek idea, and therefore to doubt was not yet regarded as a crime, except where it interfered with public institutions. There was, no doubt, an orthodox party in Greece, 1 See 'Heracliti Ephesii Reliquiae,' ed. Bywater, p. 57, 1. 18, from 'Vita Heracliti e Diogene Laertio,' ix. 1. Mr. Bywater places the saying tj]v re o'trjcriv lepav voaov eXeye, among the Spuria, p. 51. It seems to me to have the full, massive and noble ring of Hera- kleitos. It is true that olrjcris means rather opinion and prejudice in general than religious belief, but to the philosophical mind of Herakleitos the latter is a subdivision only of the former. Opinion in general might be called a disease, but hardly a sacred disease, nor can sacred disease be taken here either in the sense of great and fearful disease, or in the technical sense of epilepsy. If I am wrong, I share my error with one of the best Greek scholars and mythologists, for Welcker takes the words of Herakleitos in the same sense in which I have taken them. They are sometimes ascribed to Epikouros ; anyhow they belong to the oldest wisdom of Greece. THE PERCEPTION OF THE INFINITE. 7 but we can hardly say that it was fanatical 1 ; nay, it is extremely difficult to understand at what time it acquired its power and whence it took its coherence 2 . Herakleitos certainly blames those who follow singers (aoMf, and whose teacher is the crowd, who pray to idols, as if they were to gossip with the walls of houses, not knowing what gods and heroes really are. Epikouros does the same. But, unlike Epikouros, Herakleitos nowhere denies the existence of invisible Gods or of the One Divine. Only when he saw people believing in what the singers, such as Homer and Hesiod, told them about Zeus and Hera, about Hermes and Aphrodite, he seems to have marvelled; and the only explanation which he could find of so strange a phenomenon was that it arose from an affection of the mind, which the physician might try to heal, whensoever it showed itself, but which he could never hope to stamp out altogether. In a certain sense, therefore, the science of religion is as little a modern invention as religion itself. Wherever there is human life, there is religion, and wherever there is religion, the question whence it came cannot be long suppressed. When children once begin to ask questions, they ask the why and the wherefore of everything, religion not ex- cepted; nay, I believe that the first problems of what we call philosophy were suggested by religion. It has sometimes been asked why Thales should be 1 Lange, ' Geschichte cles Materialismus,' i. 4. 2 See E. Curtius, 'Uber die Bedeutung von Delphi fur die Gric- chische Cultur/ Festrede am 22 Februar, 1878. 3 ' Heracliti Reliquiae/ cxi., cxxvi. 8 LECTURE I. called a philosopher, and should keep his place on the first page of every history of philosophy. Many a schoolboy may have wondered why to say that water was the beginning of all things, should be called philosophy. And yet, childish as that saying may sound to us, it was anything but childish at the time of Thales. It was the first bold denial that the gods had made the world ; it was the first open pro- test against the religion of the crowd — a protest that had to be repeated again and again before the Greeks could be convinced that such thinkers as Herakleitos (Reliquiae, xx) and Xenophanes had at least as good a right to speak of the gods or of God as Homer and other itinerant singers. No doubt, at that early time, what was alone im- portant was to show that what was believed by the crowd was purely fanciful. To ask how those fanciful opinions of the crowd had arisen, was a problem be- longing to a later age. Still, even that problem was not entirely absent from the minds of the earliest thinkers of Greece ; for no one could have given the answer ascribed to Herakleitos, who had not asked himself the question which we ask ourselves to-day : What, then, is the origin of religion 1 or, to put it into more modern language, How is it that we believe, that we accept what, as we are told by enemy and friend, cannot be supplied to us by our senses or established by our reason % Difference between Ancient and Modern Belief. It may be said that, when Herakleitos pondered on ofycns, or belief, he meant something very different from what we mean by religion. No doubt he did ; for if there is a word that has changed from century THE PERCEPTION OF THE INFINITE. 9 to century, and has a different aspect in every country in which it is used — nay, which conveys peculiar shades of meaning, as it is used by every man, woman, or child— it is religion. In our ordinary language we use religion in at least three different senses : first, as the object of belief ; secondly, as the power of belief; thirdly, as the manifestation of belief, whether in acts of worship or in acts of real piety. The same uncertainty prevails in other languages. It would be difficult to translate our word religion into Greek or Sanskrit ; nay, even in Latin, religio does by no means cover all that religion comprehends in English. We need not be surprised, therefore, at the frequent misunderstandings, and consequent wranglings, between those who write on religion, without at least having made so much clear to themselves and others, whether by religion they mean religious dogma, religious faith, or religious acts. I have dwelt on this point in order to show you that it is not from mere pedantry if, at the very outset of these lectures, I insist on the necessity of giving a definition of religion, before we attempt another step in our journey that is to lead us as near as possible to the hidden sources of our faith. Definitions of Religion. It was, I think, a very good old custom never to enter upon the discussion of any scientific problem, without giving beforehand definitions of the principal terms that had to be employed. A book on logic or grammar generally opened with the question, What is logic I What is grammar? No one would write on minerals without first explaining what he meant by 10 LECTURE I. a mineral, or on art without defining, as well as he might, his idea of art. No doubt it was often as troublesome for the author to give such preliminary definitions, as it seemed useless to the reader, who was generally quite incapable of appreciating in the beginning their full value. Thus it happened that the rule of giving verbal definitions came to be looked upon after a time as useless and obsolete. Some authors actually took credit for no longer giving these verbal definitions, and it soon became the fashion to say that the only true and complete definition of what was meant by logic or grammar, by law or religion, was contained in the books them- selves which treated of these subjects. But what has been the result ? Endless misunder- standings and controversies, which might have been avoided in many cases, if both sides had clearly defined what they did, and what they did not under- stand by certain words. With regard to religion, it is no doubt extremely difficult to give a definition. The word rose to the surface thousands of years ago ; it was retained while what was meant by it went on changing from century to century, and it is now often applied to the very opposite of what it was originally intended to signify. Etymological Meaning of Religio. It is useless with words of this kind to appeal to their etymological meaning. The etymological mean- ing of a word is always extremely important, both psychologically and historically, because it indicates the exact point from which certain ideas started. But to know the small source of a river is very THE PERCEPTION OF THE INFINITE. 11 different from knowing the whole course of it : and to know the etymology of a word is very different from being able to trace it through all the eddies and cataracts through which it has been tossed and tumbled, before it became what it is now. Besides, as with rivers, so with words, it is by no means easy to put our ringer on the exact spot from whence they bubble forth. The Eomans themselves felt doubtful as to the original meaning of religio. Cicero, as is well known, derived it from re-legere, to gather up again, to take up, to consider, to ponder — opposed to nec-ligere, to neglect; while others derived it from re-ligare, to fasten, to hold back. I believe myself that Cicero's etymology is the right one ; but if religio 1 meant originally attention, regard, 1 Religio, if it was derived from re-legere, would have meant originally gathering again, taking up again, considering carefully. Thus dl-Vgo meant originally to gather, to take up from among other things ; then to esteem, to love. Negligo (nec-lego) meant not to take up, to leave unnoticed, to neglect. Intelligo meant to gather together with other things, to connect together, to arrange, classify, understand. hiXXk^ ■ Relego occurs in the sense of taking back, gathering up (Ovid, Met. 8. 173) : Janua difficilis filo est inventa relecto, ' The difficult door was found by the thread [of Ariadne], which was gathered up again.' It is frequently used in the sense of travelling over the same ground : Egressi relegunt campos (Val. Fl. 8. 121). In this meaning Cicero thinks that it was used, when applied to religion : Qui omnia quae ad cultum deorum pertinerent diligenter retracta- rent et tamquam relegerent, sunt dicti religiosi ex relegendo, lit eleganter ex eligendo, tamquam a diligendo diligenter, ex intelli- gendo intelligenter : his enim in verbis omnibus inest vis legendi eadem quse in religioso (Cic. de Nat. Deor. 2, 28, 72), ' People were called religious from relegere, because they went over again, as it were, and reconsidered carefully whatever referred to the worship of gods. : 12 LECTURE I. reverence, it is quite clear that it did not continue long to retain that simple meaning. Relegere would therefore have meant originally much the same as respicere, revereri, which, from meaning to look back, came to mean to respect. An ancient author quoted by Gellius (4. 9) makes a distinction between religiosus, which he uses in the sense of superstitious, and religens. ' Religentem esse oportet,' he says, 'religiosum nefas : ' it is right to be reverent, wrong to be religious, i. e. superstitious. The difficulty that religio has retained its long e, being also written sometimes relligio (from red-ligio), is not even mentioned by Cicero. Lucretius uses both reduco and relatum with a Ions e. Religio, used subjectively, meant conscientiousness, reverence, awe, and was not originally restricted to reverence for the gods. Thus we read : Religione jurisjurandi ac metu cleorum in testimo- niis dicendis commoveri, ' to be moved in giving evidence by the reverence for an oath, and by the fear of the gods' (C. Font. 9. 20). Very soon, however, it became more and more restricted to reve- rence for the gods and divine things. People began to speak of a man's religion, meaning his piety, his faith in the gods, his observ- ance of ceremonies, till at last an entire system of faith was called religiones or religio. The other derivation of religio is supported by high authorities, such as Servius, Lactantius, St. Augustin, who derive it from re- ligare, to bind up, to fasten, to moor. From this point of view religio would have meant originally what binds us, holds us back. I doubt whether with Pott (Etym. Forsch., i. p. 201) we can say that such a derivation is impossible. No doubt, a noun like religio cannot be derived direct from a verb of the first conjugation, such as religare. That would give us religatio, just as obligare gives us obligatio. But verbs of the first conjugation are themselves deriva- tives, and many of them exist by the side of words derived from their more simple roots. Thus by the side of opinari, we have opinio and necopinus ; by the side of rebellare, rebellis and rebellio. Ebel (Kuhn's ' Zeitschrift,' iv. p. 144) points out that by the side of ligare, we have lictor, originally a binder, and that, therefore, re- ligio from religare could be defended, at all events, grammatically. I believe that is so. Still there is no trace of religare having been used by the Romans themselves in the sense of restraining, still THE PERCEPTION OF THE INFINITE. 13 Historical Aspect of Religion. It must be clear that when we have to use words which have had a long history of their own, we can neither use them in their primitive etymological mean- ing, nor can we use them at one and the same time in all the senses through which they have passed. It is utterly useless to say, for instance, that religion meant this, and did not mean that ; that it meant faith or worship, or morality or ecstatic vision, and that it did not mean fear or hope, or surmise, or reverence of the gods. Religion may mean all this ; perhaps at one time or other the name was used in every one of these meanings ; but who has a right to say that religion shall at present or in future have one of these meanings, and one only ? The mere savage may not even have a name for religion ; still when the Papua squats before his karwar, clasping his hands over his forehead, and asking himself whether what he is going to do is right or wrong, that is to him religion. Among several savage tribes, where there was no sign of a knowledge of divine beings, missionaries have recognised in the worship paid to the spirits of the departed the first faint beginnings of religion ; nor should we hesitate to recognise the last glimmerings less of revering or fearing, and these after all are the original meanings in which religio first appears in Latin. Ebel thinks that lex, leg-is, is likewise derived from ligare, like jus, from Sanskrit yu, to join. The Oscan lig-ud, lege, might seem to confirm this. But Lottner's comparison of lex, with the Old N. log, Eng. law, what is laid down, and is settled (Gesetz in German) deserves con- sideration (see Curtius : 'Griech. Etymologie,' i. p. 367), though it must be borne in mind that the transition of h and \ ^° g i s irregular. 14 LECTURE I. of religion when we see a recent philosopher, after declaring both God and gods obsolete, falling down before a beloved memory, and dedicating all his powers to the service of humanity. When the publican, stand- ing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, ' God be merciful to me a sinner,' that was to him religion. When Thales declared that all things were full of the gods, and when Buddha denied that there were any devcts or gods at all, both were stating their religious convictions. When the young Brahman lights the fire on his simple altar at the rising of the sun, and prays, in the oldest prayer of the world, 'May the Sun quicken our minds ; ' or when, later in life, he dis- cards all prayer and sacrifice as useless, nay, as hurt- ful, and silently buries his own self in the Eternal Self — all this is religion. Schiller declared that he professed no religion; and why'? From religion. How, then, shall we find a definition of religion suf- ficiently wide to comprehend all these phases of thought \ Definitions of Religion by Kant and Fichte. It may be useful, however, to examine at least a few of the more recent definitions of religion, if only to see that almost every one is met by another, which takes the very opposite view of what religion is or ought to be. According to Kant, religion is morality. When we look upon all our moral duties as divine commands, that, he thinks, constitutes religion 1 . And 1 ' Religion ist (subjectiv betrachtet) das Erkenntniss aller un- serer Pflichten als gbttlicher Gebote.' — 'Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der blossen Vernunft,' iv. i. THE PERCEPTION OF THE INFINITE. 15 we must not forget that Kant does not consider that duties are moral duties because they rest on a divine command (that would be according to Kant, mere]y revealed religion) ; on the contrary, he tells us that because we are directly conscious of them as duties, therefore we look upon them as divine commands. Any outward divine authority is, in the eyes of a Kantian philosopher, something purely phenomenal, or, as we should say, a mere concession to human weakness. An established religion 1 or the faith of a Church, though it cannot at first dispense with statutory laws which go beyond pure morality, must, he thinks, contain in itself a principle which in time will make the religion of good moral conduct its real goal, and enable us in the end to surrender the pre- liminary faith of the Church. Fichte, Kant's immediate successor, takes the very opposite view. Eeligion, he says, is never practical, and was never intended to influence our life. Pure morality suffices for that, and it is only a corrupt society that has to use religion as an impulse to moral action. Religion is knowledge. It gives to a man a clear insight into himself, answers the highest questions, and thus imparts to us a complete harmony 1 See Kant, I.e., p. 183: 'Weil indess jede auf statutarischen Gesetzen errichtete Kirche nur in so feme die wahre sein kann, als sie in sich ein Princip enthalt, sich dem reinen Vernunftglauben (als demjenigen, der, wenn er practisch ist, in jedern Grlauben eigentlich die Eeligion ausmacht) bestandig zu nahern, und den Kircbenglauben (nachdem was an ihm historisch ist) mit der Zeit entbehren zu kbnnen, so werden wir in diesen Gresetzen und an den Beamten der darauf gegriindeten Kirche doch einen Dienst (cultus) der Kirche so ferae setzen kbnnen, als diese ihre Lehren und Anordnung jederzeit auf jenen letzten Zweck (einen bffentlichen Keligionsglauben) richten/ 16 LECTURE I. with ourselves, and a thorough sanctification to our mind. Now Kant may be perfectly right in saying that religion ought to be morality, or Fichte may be per- fectly right in saying that it ought to be knowledge. What I protest against is that either the one or the other should be taken as a satisfactory definition of what is or was universally meant by the word religion. Religion, with or without Worship. There is another view according to which religion consists in the worship of divine beings, and it has been held by many writers to be impossible that a religion could exist without some outward forms, without what is called a cultus. A religious reformer has a perfect right to say so, but the historian of re- ligion could easily point out that religions have existed, and do exist still, without any signs of ex- ternal worship. In the last number of the Journal of the Anthropo- logical Society (February, 1878), Mr. C. H. E. Car- michael draws our attention to a very interesting account of a mission established by Benedictine monks hi New Nursia in Western Australia, north of the Swan Eiver, in the diocese assigned to the Eoman Catholic Bishop of Perth in 1845 1 . Tliese Bene- dictine monks took great pains to ascertain the religious sentiments of the natives, and for a long time they seem to have been unable to discover even 1 'Memorie Storiclie dell' Australia, particolarmente della Missione Benedettina di Nuova Norcia, e degli usi e costumi degli Australiani,' per Mgr. D. Rudesindo Salvado, O. S. B., Vescovo di Porto Vittoria. Roma, Tip. S. Cong, de Prop. Fide, 1851. THE PERCEPTION OF THE INFINITE. 17 the faintest traces of anything that conld be called religion. After three years of mission life, Monsignor Salvado declares that the natives do not adore any deity, whether true or false. Yet he proceeds to tell us that they believe in an Omnipotent Being, creator of heaven and earth, whom they call Motogon, and whom they imagine as a very tall, powerful, and wise man of their own country and complexion. His mode of creation was by breathing. To create the earth, he said, f Earth, come forth ! ' and he breathed, and the earth was created. So with the sun, the trees, the kangaroo, &c. Motogon, the author of good, is con- fronted by Cienga, the author of evil. This latter being is the unchainer of the whirlwind and the storm, and the invisible author of the death of their children, wherefore the natives fear him exceedingly. Moreover, as Motogon has long since been dead and decrepit, they no longer pay him any worship. Nor is Cienga, although the natives believe that he afflicts them with calamities, propitiated by any service. * Never,' the bishop concludes, 'did I observe any act of external worship, nor did any indication sug- gest to me that they practised any internal worship.' If from one savage race we turn to another, we find among the Hidatsa or Grosventre Indians of the Missouri the very opposite state. Mr. Matthews 1 , who has given us an excellent account of this tribe, says (p. 48): — 'If we use the term worship in its most extended sense, it maybe said that, besides "the Old Man Immortal" or "the Great Spirit," "the Great Mystery," they worship everything in nature. Not 1 'Ethnography and Philology of the Hidatsa Indians.' By Washington Matthews. Washington, 1877. C 18 LECTURE I. man alone, but the sun, the moon, the stars, all the lower animals, all trees and plants, rivers and lakes, many boulders and other separated rocks, even some hills and buttes which stand alone — in short, every- thing not made by human hands, which has an inde- pendent being, or can be individualized, possesses a spirit, or, more properly, a shade. To these shades some respect or consideration is due, but not equally to all. . . . The sun is held in great veneration, and many valuable sacrifices are made to it.' Here then among the very lowest of human beings we see how some worship everything, while others worship nothing, and who shall say which of the two is the more truly religious % Let us now look at the conception of religion, such as we find it among the most cultivated races of Europe, and we shall find among them the same di- vergence. Kant declares that to attempt to please the Deity by acts which have no moral value, by mere cultus, i.e. by external worship, is not religion, but simply superstition 1 . I need not quote authorities 1 ' Alles, was, ausser dem guten Lebenswandel, der Mensch nock thun zu konnen vermeint, urn Gott wohlgefallig zu werden, ist blosser Religionswahn und Afterdienst Gottes' (1. c. iv. 2, p. 205). ' Ob der Andachtler seinen statutenm'assigen Gang zur Kirche, oder ob er erne Wallfahrt nach den Heiligthiimern in Loretto oder Palastina anstellt, ob er seine Gebetsformeln mit den Lippen, oder wie der Tibetaner (welcher glaubt, dass diese "Wiinsche, auch schriftlich anfgesetzt, wenn sie nur durch irgend Etwas, z. B. auf Flaggen geschrieben, durch den Wind, oder in einer Biicbse einge- schlossen, als eine Scliwungmascbine mit der Hand bewegt werden ibren Zweck ebenso gut erreicben) es durch ein Gebetrad an die himmlische Behorde bringt, oder was fur ein Surrogat des morali- schen Dienstes Gottes es auch immer sein mag, das ist Alles einerlei und von gleichen "VVerth' (p. 208). THE PERCEPTION OF THE INFINITE. 19 on the other side who declare that a silent religion of the heart, or even an active religion in common life, is nothing without an external worship, without a priesthood, without ritual. We might examine many more definitions of reli- gion, and we should always find that they contain what certain persons thought that religion ought to be ; but they are hardly ever wide enough to em- brace all that has been called religion at different periods in the history of the world. That being so, the next step has generally been to declare that whatever is outside the pale of any one of these definitions, does not deserve to be called relioion : but should be called superstition, or idolatry, or morality, or philosophy, or any other more or less offensive name. Kant would call much of what other people call religion, hallucination; Fichte would call Kant's own religion mere legality. Many people would qualify the brilliant services, whether carried on in Chinese temples or Roman Catholic cathedrals, as mere superstition ; while the faith of the silent Australians, and the half-uttered convictions of Kant, would by others be classed together as not very far removed from atheism. Definition of Schleiermacher (Dependence), and of Hegel (Freedom). I shall mention one more definition of religion, which in modern times has been rendered memorable and popular by Schleiermacher. According to him religion consists in our consciousness of absolute dependence on something which, though it deter- mines us, we cannot determine in turn 1 . But here 1 This is, of course, a very imperfect account of Schleiermuclier's C 2 20 LECTURE I. # again another class of philosophers step in, declaring that feeling of dependence the very opposite of religion. There is a famous, though not very wise saying of Hegel, that if the consciousness of depen- dence constituted religion, the dog would possess most religion. On the contrary religion, according to Hegel, is or ought to be perfect freedom ; for it is neither more nor less than the Divine Spirit be- coming conscious of himself through the finite spirit. Comte and Feuerbach. From this point it required but another step, and that step was soon taken by Feuerbach in Germany, and by Comte in France, to make man himself, not only the subject, but also the object of religion and religious worship. We are told that man cannot know anything higher than man ; that man therefore is the only true object of religious knowledge and worship, only not man as an individual, but man as a class. The generic concept of man, or the genius of humanity, is to be substantiated, and then humanity becomes at once both the priest and the deity. Nothing can be more eloquent, and in some passages really more solemn and sublime than the religion of humanity, as preached by Comte and his disciples. Feuerbach, however, dissipates the last mystic halo which Comte had still left. ' Self-love,' he says, ' is a necessary, indestructible, universal law and principle, inseparable from every kind of love. Religion must and does confirm this on every page view of religion, which became more and more perfect as he ad- vanced in life. See on this point the excellent l Life of Schleier- macher,' by W. Dilthey, 1870. THE PERCEPTION OF THE INFINITE. 21 of her history. Wherever man tries to resist that human egoism, in the sense in which we explained it, whether in religion, philosophy, or politics, he sinks into pure nonsense and insanity ; for the sense which forms the foundation of all human instincts, desires, and actions is the satisfaction of the human being, the satisfaction of human egoism 1 .' Difficulty of Defining Religion. Thus we see that each definition of religion, as soon as it is started, seems at once to provoke another which meets it by a flat denial. There seem to be almost as many definitions of religion as there are religions in the world, and there is almost the same hostility between those who maintain these different definitions of religion as there is between the be- lievers in different religions. What, then, is to be done 1 Is it really impossible to give a definition of religion, that should be applicable to all that has ever been called religion, or by some similar name % I believe it is, and you will yourselves have perceived the reason why it is so. Religion is something which has passed, and is still passing through an historical evolution, and all we can do is to follow it up to its origin, and then to try to comprehend it in its later historical developments. Specific Characteristic of Religion. But though an adequate definition, or even an exhaustive description, of all that has ever been called religion is impossible, what is possible is to give some specific characteristic which distinguishes V 1 Feuerbach, ' Wesen der Religion,' p. ioo. 22 LECTURE I. the objects of religious consciousness from all other objects, and at the same time distinguishes oar consciousness, as applied to religious objects, from our consciousness when dealing with other objects sup- plied to it by sense and reason. Let it not be supposed, however, that there is a separate consciousness for religion. There is but one self and one consciousness, although that conscious- ness varies according to the objects to which it is applied. We distinguish between sense and reason, though even these two are in the highest sense differ- ent functions only of the same conscious self. In the same manner, when we speak of faith as a religious faculty in man, all that we can mean is our ordinary consciousness, so developed and modified as to enable us to take cognisance of religious objects. This is not meant as a new sense, by the side of the other senses, or as a new reason by the side of our ordinary reason,— a new soul within the soul. It is simply the old consciousness applied to new objects, and reacted upon by them. To admit faith as a sepa- rate religious faculty, or a theistic instinct, in order to explain religion as a fact, such as we find it everywhere, would be like admitting a vital force in order to explain life ; it would be a mere playing with words or trifling with truth. Such explanations may have answered formerly, but at present the battle has advanced too far for any peace to be con- cluded on such terms. Religion, as a Subjective Faculty for the Apprehension of the Infinite. In a course of introductory lectures on the Science of Religion, delivered at the Royal Institution in THE PERCEPTION OF THE INFINITE. 23 1873, I tried to define the subjective side of religion, or what is commonly called faith, in the following words l : — * Religion is a mental faculty which, independent of, nay, in spite of sense and reason, enables man to apprehend the infinite under different names and under varying disguises. Without that faculty, no religion, not even the lowest worship of idols and fetishes, would be possible ; and if we will but listen attentively, we can hear in all religions a- groaning of the spirit, a struggle to conceive the inconceivable, to utter the unutterable, a longing after the Infinite, a love of God.' I do not quote these words because I altogether approve of them now. I very seldom approve altogether of what I have written myself some years ago. I fully admit the force of many objec- tions that have been raised against that definition of religion, but I still think that the kernel of it is sound. I should not call it now an exhaustive definition of religion, but I believe it supplies such characteristics as will enable us to distinguish be- tween religious consciousness on one side, and sen- suous and rational consciousness on the other. What has been chiefly objected to in my definition of religion, was that I spoke of it as a mental faculty. 'Faculty* is a word that rouses the anger of certain philosophers, and to some extent I fully share their objections. It seems to be imagined that faculty must signify something substantial, a spring as it were, setting a machine in motion ; a seed or a pip that can be handled, and will spring 1 'Introduction to the Science of Religion,' 1873, p. 17. 24 LECTURE I. up when planted in proper soil. How faculty could be used in such a sense, I have never been able to comprehend, though I cannot deny that it has often been thus used. Faculty signifies a mode of action, never a substantial something. Faculties are neither gods nor ghosts, neither powers nor principalities. Faculties are inherent in substances, quite as much as forces or powers are. We gene- rally speak of the faculties of conscious, of the forces of unconscious substances. Now we know that there is no force without substance, and no substance without force. To speak of gravity, for instance, as a thing by itself, would be sheer mythology. If the law of gravity had been discovered at Kome, there would have been a temple built to the goddess of gravity. We no longer build temples, but the way in which some natural philosophers speak of gravity is hardly less mythological. The same danger exists, I fully admit, with regard to the manner in which certain philosophers speak of our faculties, and we know that one faculty at least, that of Reason, has had an altar erected to her not very long ago. If, therefore, faculty is an ambiguous and dangerous, or if it is an unpopular word, let us by all means discard it. I am perfectly willing to say * potential energy' instead, and therefore to define the subjective side of religion as the potential energy which enables man to apprehend the infinite. If the English language allowed it, I should even propose to replace 'faculty' by the Not-yet, and to speak of the Not-yet of language and religion, instead of their faculties or potential energies 1 . Professor Pfleiderer, to whom 1 Instead of slaying the slain over again, I quote the following THE PERCEPTION OF THE INFINITE. 25 we owe some excellent contributions to the science of religion, finds fault with my definition because it admits, not only & facultas, but & facultas occulta. All depends here again on the sense which we attach to facultas occulta. If it means no more than that there is in men, both individually and generally (ontogenetically and phylogeneticallv) some- thing that develops into perception, conception, and faith, using the last word as meaning the appre- hension of the infinite, then I fully admit a facultas occulta. Everything that develops may from one point of view be called occult. This, however, applies not only to the faculty of faith, but likewise to the faculties of sense and reason. words of Locke, ' On the Understanding,' Book ii. c. 21. 17 : — ' For if it be reasonable to suppose and talk of faculties as distinct beings, that can act (as we do, when we say the will orders, and the will is free), it is fit that we should make a speaking faculty, and a walk- ing faculty, and a dancing faculty, by which those actions are pro- duced, which are but several modes of motion ; as well as we make the will and understanding to be faculties by which the actions of choosing and perceiving are produced, which are but several modes of thinking; and we may as properly say, that it is the singing faculty sings, and the dancing faculty dances, as that the will chooses, or that the understanding conceives ; or, as is usual, that the will directs the understanding, or the understanding obeys, or obeys not, the will ; it being altogether as proper and intelligible to say, that the power of speaking directs the power of singing, or the power of singing obeys, or disobeys the power of speaking. This way of talking, nevertheless, has prevailed, and, as I guess, produced great confusion/ 'In einem Dialog sollte einmal recht persiflirt werden, wie die Leute von einzelnen Seelenvermogen reden, z. B. Kant : die reine Vernunft schmeichelt sich.' — Schleiermacher, von Dilthev, vol. i. P- 122. 26 LECTURE I. The Three Functions of Sense, Reason, and Faith. Secondly, it has been objected that there is some- thing mysterious in this view of religion. As to myself, I cannot see that in admitting, besides the sensuous and rational, a third function of the con- scious self, for apprehending the infinite, we intro- duce a mysterious element into psychology. One of the essential elements of all religious knowledge is the admission of beings which can neither be apprehended by sense nor comprehended by reason. Sense and reason, therefore, in the ordinary accepta- tion of these terms, would not be sufficient to account for the facts before us. If, then, we openly admit a third function of our consciousness for the apprehension of what is infinite, that function need not be more mysterious than those of sense and reason. Nothing is in reality more mysterious than sensuous perception. It is the real mystery of all mysteries. Yet we have accustomed ourselves to regard it as the most natural of all things. Next comes reason which, to a being restricted to sensuous perception, might certainly appear very mysterious again, and which even by certain philosophers has been represented as altogether incomprehensible. Yet we know that reason is only a development of sensuous perception, possible under certain con- ditions. These conditions correspond to what we call the potential energy or faculty of reason. They belong to one and the same conscious self, and though reason is active in a different manner, yet, if kept under proper control, reason works in perfect harmony with sense. The same applies to religion, in its subjective sense of faith. It is, as I shall THE PERCEPTION OF THE INFINITE. 27 try to show, simply another development of sensuous perception, quite as much as reason is. It is pos- sible under certain conditions, and these conditions correspond to what we call the potential energy of faith. Without this third potential energy, the facts which are before us in religion, both sub- jectively and objectively, seem to me inexplicable. If they can be explained by a mere appeal to sense and reason, in the ordinary meaning of these words, let it be done. We shall then have a rational religion, or an intuitional faith. None of my critics, however, has done that yet ; few, I believe, would like to do it. When I say that our apprehension of the infinite takes place independent of, nay, in spite of sense and reason, I use these two words in their ordinary acceptation. If it is true that sense supplies us with finite objects only, and if reason has nothing to work on except those finite objects, then our assumed apprehension of anything infinite must surely be independent of, nay, in spite of sense or reason. Whether the premisses are right is another question, which we shall have to discuss presently. The Meaning of Infinite. Let us now see whether we can agree on some general characteristic of all that forms the object of our religious consciousness. I chose ' infinite ' for that purpose, as it seemed best to comprehend all that transcends our senses and our reason, taking these terms in their ordinary meaning. All sensuous knowledge, whatever else it may be, is universally ad- mitted to be finite, finite in space and time, finite also 28 LECTURE I. in quantity and quality, and as our conceptual know- ledge is based entirely on our sensuous knowledge, that also can deal with finite objects only. Finite being then the most general predicate of all our so- called positive knowledge, I thought infinite the least objectionable term for all that transcends our senses and our reason, always taking these words in their ordinary meaning. I thought it preferable to indefinite, invisible, supersensuous, supernatural, absolute or di- vine, as the characteristic qualification of the objects of that large class of knowledge which constitutes what we call religion. All these terms are meant for the same thing. They all express different aspects of the same object. I have no predilection for infinite, except that it seems to me the widest term, the highest generalization. But if any other term seems preferable, again I say, let us adopt it by all means. Only let us now clearly understand what we mean by infinite, or any other of these terms that may seem preferable. If the infinite were, as certain philosophers suppose, simply a negative abstraction (ein negativer Abstrac- tions-begriff) then, no doubt, reason would suffice to explain how we came to be possessed of it. But ab- straction wull never give us more than that from which we abstract. From a given number of per- ceptions we can abstract the concept of a given mul- titude. Infinite, however, is not contained in finite, therefore we may do what we like, we shall never be able to abstract the infinite from the finite. To say, as many do, that the infinite is a negative abstract concept, is a mere playing with words, We may form a negative abstract concept, when we have to deal with serial or correlative concepts, but not other- THE PERCEPTION OF THE INFINITE. 29 wise. Let us take a serial concept, such as blue, then not-blue means green, yellow, red, any colour, in fact, except blue. Not-blue means simply the whole con- cept of colour, minus blue. We might of course comprehend sweet, or heavy, or crooked by the nega- tive concept of not-blue, — but our logic does not admit of such proceedings. If we take correlative concepts, such as crooked and straight, then not-straight may by logicians be called a negative concept, but it is in reality quite as positive as crooked, not-straight being crooked, not- crooked being straight. Now let us apply this to finite. Finite, we are told, comprehends everything that can be perceived by the senses, or counted by reason. Therefore, if we do not only form a word at random, by adding the ordinary negative particle to finite, but try to form a really negative concept, then that concept of infinite would be outside the concept of finite, and as, according to a premiss generally granted, there is nothing known to us outside the concept of the finite, the concept of the infinite would simply comprise nothing. Infinite therefore cannot be treated simply as a negative concept ; if it were no more than that, it would be a word formed by false analogy, and signify nothing. Can the Finite apprehend the Infinite ? All the objections which we have hitherto exam- ined proceed from friendly writers. They are amend- ments of my own definition of religion, they do not amount to a moving of the previous question. But it is well known that that previous question also has been moved. There is a large class, not only of 30 LECTURE I. philosophers by profession, but of independent thinkers in all classes of society, who look upon any attempt at defining religion as perfectly useless, who would not listen even to a discussion whether one religion was false or another true, but who simply deny the possibility of any religion whatsoever, on the ground that men cannot apprehend what is infinite, while all religions, however they may differ on other points, agree in this, that their objects transcend, either partially or entirely, the apprehensive and compre- hensive powers of our senses and our reason. This is the ground on which what is now called positive philosophy takes its stand, denying the possibility of religion, and challenging all who admit any source of knowledge except sense and reason, to produce their credentials. This is not a new challenge, nor is the ground on which the battle has to be fought new ground. It is the old battle-field measured out long ago by Kant, only that the one opening which was still left in his time, viz. the absolute certainty of moral truth, and through it the certainty of the existence of a God, is now closed up. There is no escape in that direction 1 . 1 One of the first who pointed out the uncertainty of the founda- tion on which Kant attempted to reconstruct religion, in the widest sense of the word, was "Wyttenbach, Opusc. ii., p. 190: 'Non con- sentaneus sibi est (Kantius) in eo, quod, quum categorias a priori intelligibiles et antiquiores esse experientia statuit, ab his nullum progressum ad nova intelligibilia concedit .... Turn quod ilia tria placita, " clei, immortalitatis, libertatis," ex metaphysica ad ethicam, ex theoretica ratione ad practicam relegat, non modo ha?c ipsa pla- cita labefactat, ex lucido firmoque intelligentiae fastigio in lubricam et confusam interni sensus latebram rejiciens, sed d(f)L\oa6(f)cos agit et ipsum primum philosophise officiuni negligit. . . . Theoretica THE PERCEPTION OF THE INFINITE. 31 The battle between those who believe in something which transcends onr senses and our reason, who claim for man the possession of a faculty or potential energy for apprehending the infinite, and those who deny it on purely psychological grounds, must end in the victory of one, and the surrender of the other party. Conditions accepted on both sides. Before we commit ourselves to this struggle for life or death, let us inspect once more the battlefield, as it is measured out for us, and survey what is the common ground, on which both parties have agreed to stand or to fall. What is granted to us is that all consciousness begins with sensuous perception, with what we feel, and hear, and see. This gives us sensuous knowledge. What is likewise granted is that out of this we construct what may be called conceptual knowledge, consisting of collective and abstract concepts. What we call thinking consists simply in addition and subtraction of percepts and concepts. Conceptual knowledge differs from sen- suous knowledge, not in substance, but in form only. As far as the material is concerned, nothing exists in the intellect except what existed before in the senses. The organ of knowledge is throughout the same, only dogmata ex practico ducuntur contra naturam philosophise, cujus est practica ex theoretico ducere. . . . Ilia tria theoretica dogmata longe dilucidiora et minus incerta sunt, quam ille sensus moralis dubius et controversus .... novo habitu imperatorio, inaudito nomine imperativi categorici in scenam revocatus et productus. Nonne hoc est Deum ex machina inducere 1 ?' See Prantl, ' Sitz- ungsberichte der philos. philolog. und historischen Classe der K. B. Akademie der Wissenschaften/ 1877, p. 284. 32 LECTURE I. that it is more highly developed in animals that have five senses, than in animals that have but one sense, and again more highly developed in man who counts and forms concepts, that in all other animals who do not. On this ground and with these weapons we are to fight. With them, we are told, all knowledge has been gained, the whole world has been conquered. If with them we can force our way to a world beyond, well and good • if not, we are asked to confess that all that goes by the name of religion, from the lowest fetishism to the most spiritual and exalted faith, is a delusion, and that to have recognised this delusion is the greatest triumph of our age. I accept these terms, and I maintain that religion, so far from being impossible, is inevitable, if only we are left in possession of our senses, such as we really find them, not such as they have been defined for us. Thus the issue is plain. We claim no special faculty, no special revelation. The only faculty we claim is perception, the only revelation we claim is history, or, as it is now called, historical evolution. For let it not be supposed that we find the idea of the infinite ready made in the human mind from the very beginning of our history. There are even now millions of human beings to whom the very word would be unintelligible. All we maintain is that the germ or the possibility, the Not-yet of that idea, lies hidden in the earliest sensuous perceptions, and that as reason is evolved from what is finite, so faith is evolved from what, from the very beginning, is infinite in the perceptions of our senses. Positive philosophy imagines that all that is sup- plied to us through the senses is by its very nature THE PERCEPTION OF THE INFINITE. 33 finite, that whatever transcends the finite is a mere delusion, that the very word infinite is a mere jingle, produced by an outward joining of the negative particle with the adjective finite, a particle which has a perfect right with serial, or correlative concepts, but which is utterly out of place with an absolute or exclusive concept, such as finite. If the senses tell us that all is finite, and if reason draws all her capital from the senses, who has a right, they say, to speak of the infinite % It may be true that an essential element of all religious knowledge is the admission of beings which can neither be apprehended by sense, nor comprehended by reason, which are in fact in- finite, and not finite. But instead of admitting a third faculty or potential energy in order to account for these facts of religion, positive philosophers would invert the argument, and prove that, for that very reason, religion has no real roots in our con- sciousness, that it is a mere mirage in the desert, al- luring the weary traveller with bright visions, and leaving him to despair, when he has come near enough to where the springs of living water seemed to flow. Some philosophers have thought that a mere appeal to history would be a sufficient answer to this despairing view. No doubt, it is important that, so long as we know man in possession of sense and reason, we also find him in pos- session of religion. But not even the eloquence of Cicero has been able to raise this fact to the dignity of an invulnerable argument. That all men have a longing for the gods is an important truth, but not even the genius of Homer could place that truth beyond the reach of doubt. Who has not wondered at those simple words of Homer (Od. iii. 48), D 34 LECTURE T. y-Kavres Se Oewv x aT ^ 0VCjP avBpcoiroi, ' All men crave for the gods;' or, as we might render it still more literally and truthfully, 'As young birds ope their mouth for food, all men crave for the gods/ For yareh', as connected with ya' LV€lv > mean t originally to gape, to open the mouth, then to crave, to desire. But even that simple statement is met with an equally simple denial. Some men, we are told, in very ancient times, and some in very modern times, know of no such cravings. It is not enough therefore to show that man has always transcended the limits which sense and reason seem to trace for him. It is not enough to show that, even in the lowest fetish worship, the fetish is not only what we can see, or hear, or touch, but something else, which we cannot see, or hear, or touch. It is not enough to show that in the worship paid to the objects of nature, the mountains, trees, and rivers are not simply what we can see, but some- thing else winch we cannot see ; and that when the sky and the heavenly bodies are invoked, it is not the sun or the moon and the stars, such as they appear to the bodily eye, but again something else which cannot be seen, that forms the object of religions belief. The rain is visible; he who sends the rain is not. The thunder is heard, the storm is felt; but he who thunders and rides on the whirlwind is never seen by human eye. Even if the gods of the Greeks are sometimes seen, the Father of gods and men is not; and he who in the oldest Aryan speech was called Heaven- Father (Dyaus Pitar), in Greek Zevs irarnp, in Latin Jupiter, was no more an object of sensuous perception than He whom we call our Father in heaven. THE PERCEPTION OF THE INFINITE. 35 All this is true, and it will be the object of these lectures to watch this important development of religious thought from its very beginning to its very end, though in one stream only, namely, in the ancient religion of India. But before we can do this, we have to answer the preliminary and more abstract question, Whence comes that some- thing else, which, as we are told, neither sense nor reason can supply ? Where is the rock for him to stand on, who declines to rest on anything but what is called the evidence of the senses, or to trust in anything but the legitimate deductions derived from it by reason, and who nevertheless maintains his belief in something which transcends both sense and reason \ Apprehension of the Infinite. We have granted that all our knowledge begins with the senses, and that out of the material, supplied by the senses, reason builds up its mar- vellous structure. If therefore all the materials which the senses supply are finite, whence, we ask, comes the concept of the infinite \ 1. The Infinitely Great. The first point that has to be settled — and on that point all the rest of our argument turns — is this : * Are all the materials which the senses supply finite, and finite only?' It is true that all we can see, and feel, and hear has a beginning and an end, and is it only by apprehending these beginnings and ends that we gain sensuous know- ledge \ We perceive a body by perceiving its D 2 36 LECTURE I. outline ; we perceive green in large intervals be- tween blue and yellow ; we bear tbe musical note D between wbere C ends and E begins ; and so with all other perceptions of tbe senses. This is true — true at least for all practical purposes. But let us look more carefully. When our eye has apprehended the furthest distance which it can reach, with or without instruments, the limit to which it clings is always fixed on the one side by the finite, but on the other side by what to the eye is not finite, or infinite. Let us remember that we have accepted the terms of our opponents, and that therefore we look upon man as simply endowed with sense. To most philosophers it would appear much more natural, and, I doubt not, much more convincing, to derive the idea of the infinite from a necessity of our human reason. Wherever we try to fix a point in space or time, they say, we are utterly unable to fix it so as to exclude the possibility of a point beyond. In fact, our very idea of limit implies the idea of a beyond, and thus forces the idea of the infinite upon us, whether we like it or not. This is perfectly true, but we must think, not of our friends, but of our opponents, and it is well known that our opponents do not accept that argument. If on one side, they say, our idea of a limit implies a beyond and leads us to postulate an infinite, on the other, our idea of a whole excludes a beyond, and thus leads us to postulate a finite. These antinomies of human reason have been fully discussed by Kant, and later philosophers have naturally appealed to them to show that what we call necessities, may be after all but weaknesses THE PERCEPTION OF THE INFINITE. 37 of human reason, and that, like all other ideas, those of finite and infinite also, if they are to be admitted at all, must be shown to be the result not of speculation, but of experience, and as all experience is at first sensuous, the result of sensuous experience. This is the argument we have to deal with, and here neither Sir W. Hamilton nor Lucretius can help us. We have accepted the primitive savage with nothing but his five senses. These five senses supply him with a knowledge of finite things ; our problem is, how such a being ever comes to think or speak of anything not finite or infinite. I answer, without any fear of contradiction, that it is his senses which give him the first impression of infinite things, and supply him in the end with an intimation of the infinite. Everything of which his senses cannot perceive a limit, is to a primitive savage, or to any man in an early stage of in- tellectual activity, unlimited or infinite. Man sees, he sees to a certain point ; and there his eyesight breaks down. But exactly where his sight breaks down, there presses upon him, whether he likes it or not, the perception of the unlimited or the infinite. It may be said that this is not perception, in the ordinary sense of the word. No more it is, but still less is it mere reasoning. In perceiving the infinite, we neither count, nor measure, nor compare, nor name. We know not what it is, but we know that it is, and we know it, because we actually feel it and are brought in contact with it. If it seems too bold to say that man actually sees the invisible, let us say that he suffers from the invisible, and this invisible is only a s}Decial name for the infinite. 38 LECTURE I. Therefore, as far as mere distance or extension is concerned, it would seem difficult to deny that the eye, by the very same act by which it apprehends the finite, apprehends also the infinite. The more we advance, the wider no doubt grows our horizon ; but there never is or can be to our senses a horizon unless as standing between the visible and finite on one side, and the invisible and infinite on the other. The infinite, therefore, instead of being merely a late abstraction, is really implied in the earliest manifesta- tions of our sensuous knowledge. Theology begins with anthropology. We must begin with a man living on high mountains, or in a vast plain, or on a coral island without hills and streams, surrounded on all sides by the endless expanse of the ocean, and screened above by the unfathomable blue of the sky ; and we shall then understand how, from the images thrown upon him by the senses, some idea of the infinite would arise in his mind earlier even than the concept of the finite, and would form the omnipresent background of the faintly dotted picture of his monotonous life. 2. The Infinitely Small. But that is not all. We apprehend the infinite not only as beyond, but also as within the finite ; not only as beyond all measure great, but also as beyond all measure small. However much our senses may contract the points of their tentacles, they can never touch the smallest objects. There is al- ways a beyond, always a something smaller still. We may, if we like, postulate an atom in its original sense, as something that cannot be cut asunder ; our THE PERCEPTION OF THE INFINITE. 39 senses, — and we speak of them only, for we have been restricted to them by our opponents, — admit of no real atoms, nor of imponderable substances, or, as Eobert Mayer called these last gods of Greece, ' immaterial matter.' In apprehending the smallest extension, they apprehend a smaller extension still. Between the centre and the circumference, which every object must have in order to become visible, there is always a radius ; and that omnipresent and never entirely vanishing radius gives us again the sensuous impression of the infinite — of the infinitely small, as opposed to the infinitely great. And what applies to space, applies equally to time, applies equally to quality and quantity. When we speak of colours or sounds, we seem for all practical purposes to move entirely within the finite. This is red, we say, this is green, this is violet. This is C, this is D, this is E. What can apparently be more finite, more definite \ But let us look more closely. Let us take the seven colours of the rainbow ; and where is the edge of an eye sharp enough to fix itself on the point where blue ends and green begins, or where green ends and yellow begins \ We might as well attempt to put our clumsy fingers on the point where one millimetre ends and another begins. We divide colour by seven rough degrees, and speak of the seven colours of the rainbow. Even those seven rough degrees are of late date in the evolution of our sensuous knowledge. Xenophanes says that what people call Iris is a cloud, purple (iropifivpeov), red (QoivUeov), and yellow (x^oV). Even Aristotle still speaks of the tricoloured rain- bow, red ((poiviKv), yellow (£ai/0i}), and green (icpavivn), and in the Edda the rainbow is called a 40 LECTURE I. three-coloured bridge. Blue, which seems to us so definite a colour, was worked out of the infinity of colours at a comparatively late time. There is hardly a book now in which we do not read of the blue sky. But in the ancient hymns of the Veda 1 , so full of the dawn, the sun, and the sky, the blue sky is never mentioned ; in the Zendavesta the blue sky is never mentioned ; in Homer the blue sky is never mentioned ; in the Old, and even in the New Testament, the blue sky is never mentioned. It has been asked whether we should recognize in this a physiological development of our senses, or a gradual increase of words capable of expressing finer dis- tinctions of light. No one is likely to contend that the irritations of our organs of sense, which produce sensation, as distinguished from perception, were different thousands of years ago from what they are now. They are the same for all men, the same even for certain animals, for we know that there are in- sects which react very strongly against differences of colour. No, we only learn here again, in a very clear manner, that conscious perception is impossible without language. Who would contend that savages, unable, as we are told, to count beyond three — that is to say, not in possession of definite numerals beyond three — do not receive the sensuous im- pression of four legs of a cow as different from three or two'? No, in this evolution of consciousness of 1 See a very remarkable paper, ' Uber den Farbensinn der Urzeit und seine Entwickelung,' by L. Geiger in his ' Vortrage zur Entwickelungsgeschichte der Menschheit,' 187 1, p. 45- The same subject is treated again in his ' Ursprung und Entwickelung der menschlichen Sprache und Vernunft/ Zweiter Band, p. 304 seq. THE PERCEPTION OF THE INFINITE. 41 colour we see once more how perception, as different from sensation, goes hand in hand with the evolution of language, and how slowly every definite concept is gained out of an infinitude of indistinct perceptions. Demokritos knew of four colours, viz. black and white, which he treated as colours, red and yellow. Are we to say that he did not see the blue of the sky because he never called it blue, but either dark or bright? In China the number of colours was originally five. That number was increased with the increase of their power of distinguishing and of expressing their distinctions in words. In common Arabic, as Palgrave tells us, the names for green, black, and brown are constantly confounded to the present day. It is well known that among savage nations we seldom find distinct words for blue and black 1 , but we shall find the same indefiniteness of expression when we inquire into the antecedents of our own language. Though blue now does no longer mean black, we see in such expressions as ' to beat black and blue' the closeness of the two colours. In Old Norse too, bldr, bid, bldtt now means blue, as distinct from blakkr, black. But in 0. N. bldman, the livid colour of a bruise, we see the indefiniteness of meaning between black and blue, and in bld-madr, a black man, a negro, bid means distinctly black. The etymology of these words is very obscure. Grimm derives blue, 0. H. G. pldo, plawes, Med. Lat. blavus and blavius, It. biavo, Fr. bleu, from Goth. bliggvan, to strike, so that it would originally have conveyed the black and blue colour of a bruise. 1 See Meyer, ' Uber die Mafoor'sche und einige andern Papua- Sprachen/ p. 52 : 'Blau, prisim, wird nicht von scliwarz unter- schieden.' 42 LECTURE I. He appeals in support of his derivation to Latin lividus, which he derives from *fligvidus smdjligere; nay even to flavus, which he proposes to derive from *jlagvus and * flag ere. Caesius also is quoted as an analogy, supposing it is derived from caedere. All this is extremely doubtful, and the whole subject of the names of colour requires to be treated in the most comprehensive way before any certain results can be expected in the place of ingenious guesses. Most likely the root bhrag and bhrdg, w^ith r changed to 1, will be found as a fertile source of names of colour. To that root bleak, A. S. bide, blcec, O. N. bleikr, 0. H. Gr.