impression. Vestiges of the ancient general system may be traced
in the recently discovered islands in the Pacific Ocean; and,
when the American world was first opened to the hardy adventurers
of Europe, its inhabitants from north to south venerated, with
kindred ceremonies and kindred notions, the gods of Egypt and
Hindostan, of Greece and Italy, of Phoenicia and Britain."[1]
[1] Pagan Idolatry, book i., ch. i.
"Though each religion has its own peculiar growth, the seed from
which they spring is everywhere the same."[2]
[2] Max Muller, Origin and Growth of Religion, p. 48.
The question as to whether the identity of conception and the
similarity in detail observed in religious rites, ceremonies, and
symbols in the various countries of the globe are due to the
universal law of unity which governs human development, or
whether, through the dispersion of one original people, the early
conceptions of a Deity were spread broadcast over the entire
earth, is perhaps not settled; yet, from the facts which have
been brought forward during the last century, the latter theory
seems altogether probable, such divergence in religious ideas as
is observed among the various peoples of the earth being
attributable to variations in temperament caused by changed
conditions of life. In other words, the divergence in the course
of religious development has doubtless been due to environment.
In an attempt to understand the history of the growth of the
god-idea, the fact should be borne in mind that, from the
earliest conception of a creative force in the animal and
vegetable world to the latest development in theological
speculation, there has never been what might consistently be
termed a new religion. On the contrary, religion like everything
else is subject to the law of growth; therefore the faiths of
to-day are the legitimate result, or outcome, of the primary idea
of a Deity developed in accordance with the laws governing the
peculiar instincts which have been in the ascendancy during the
life of mankind on the earth.
The erroneous impression which under a belief in the unknown has
come to prevail, namely, that the moral law is the result of
religion; or, in other words, that the human conscience is in
some manner dependent on supernaturalism for its origin and
maintenance, is, with a better and clearer understanding of the
past history of the development of the human race, being
