GENERAL INTRODUCTION.
Human nature, among all the phenomena it offers to the
curious inquiries of the student, presents none of more transcendent
interest than the phenomenon of Religion. Pervading
the whole history of mankind from the very earliest ages of
which we have any authentic knowledge up to the present day;
exercising on the wild and wandering tribes, which seem to
have divided the earth among them in those primitive times,
an influence scarcely less profound than it has ever exercised on
the most polite and cultivated nations of the modern world;
leading now to peace and now to war; now to the firmest of
alliances, now to the bitterest enmities; uniting some in the
bonds of a love so enduring as to outlast and put to shame the
fleeting unions of earthly passion; separating others, even when
every motive of interest and natural affection conspired to unite
them, so completely as to impel them to deliver each other up
to the ghastliest tortures; Religion deserves a foremost place—if
not the foremost place of all—among the emotions which
have in their several ways affected, modified, and controlled the
current of human events.
Forming, as it does, so large an element in the constitution of our complex nature; and playing so vast a part in guiding our actions, Religion must well deserve to be made the subject of philosophical inquiry. If we can by any scientific means discover its origin, lay bare its true character to the gaze of students, and estimate the value of its pretensions to be in posses-
