PART III. THE RELIGION OF PHILOSOPHY. CHAPTER XVII. SUPERSTITION AND MYSTERY. Resemblance between Primitive and Modern Religious Beliefs-Superstition the Negative, Morality the Positive Form of Religion. RELIGIOUS criticism is wholly a modern art. As language reached a high state of perfection before the manner of its growth was discovered, so the higher human sentiments have grown into bonds of universal sympathy before the race has been able to form any adequate idea of the laws of thought and feeling. It is the study of the development of language which makes possible an intelligent view of the great subject of Religion. The races of the world have unconsciously written their emotional and moral history in the formation of their speech. The comparative study of languages gives us an insight into the origin of nations, so that we are enabled to classify the races of mankind with far greater accuracy than before the advent of this science. The different races of men represent different classes of ideas; representative types of thought and feeling which have their expression in certain forms of social organization or Morality, and certain forms of the higher sentiments or Religion. The morals and the religions of the world as we find them are the products of the slow evolution of human ity, the results of past conditions, and they can only be accounted for by studying the phases of development through which they have passed. The foregoing divisions of this work have been devoted to establishing a clear understanding of the fundamental principles of life, to building up a true conception of knowledge. We have dealt, not with the circumstances of social life, not with human history, but with the nature of man himself, the interaction of his physical and psychical nature, with a view to explaining the wonderful phenomena of language and perception. We are now, in a measure, prepared to deal with that highest aspect of human existence which we call Morality, and that vast emotional structure known as Religion. As the greatest logical achievements have resulted from the ceaseless energies of metaphysical investigation, notwithstanding the apparent hopelessness and unreality of the pursuit, so our best conceptions of duty and life have sprung from the emotions of religion, notwithstanding the various degrees of degradation and misery to which mistaken religious beliefs have subjected all races and civilizations. Where the tenets of logic are concerned, men have always been comparatively free to contend without interference or reproach; the populace has taken but little interest in these wars of abstractions; but with the contentions of religious faiths it has been very different, and it is natural that it should have been so. To wantonly assail a religious faith is a very serious matter: it may cause inestimable harm, and it seldom if ever has a good influence. As will afterward appear, religion and morality are but the obverse aspects of the higher phases of human character. To disturb the one is to disturb the other. If there is one opinion with regard to the criticism of religion which is universal, it is that we have no right to destroy a faith unless to supplant it with a better one. Proselytism has never been condemned as immoral, however much it has been resisted, for the missionary believes that he is im |