An Introduction to the Study of Comparative Religion

To attempt to define magic is a risky thing; and, instead of doing so at once, I will try to mark off proceedings which are not magical; and I would venture to say that things w...

The question then arises whether we have any reason to believe that magic used for nefarious purposes must have existed before religion. Now by nefarious purposes I mean purpose...

The reason for beginning with the lowest forms is--as is proper in a practical science--a practical one. As I have already said, if the missionary is to succeed in his work, he...

The spring and harvest customs are closely allied to one another and may be arranged in four groups: (1) In Mexico they plainly consist of the worship of a god--by means of sacr...

I will begin by calling attention to the fact that that proposition is true both statically, that is to say, is true of the individual's position in a community, and is also tru...

Now if the rite as it occurs in Australia is pure magic, and if religion is not a variety of magic but fundamentally different from it, then the rite which, as it occurs everywh...

Now, it is, I venture to suggest, impossible to dissociate from the first-fruits ceremonials which I have described the ceremonies observed by Australian black fellows on simila...

Those who desire to prove that at the present day morality can exist apart from religion, and that in the future it will do so, finding its basis in humanitarianism and not in r...

Professor Tylor, noticing the "extreme development of mechanical religion, the prayer-mill of the Tibetan Buddhists," suggests that it "may perhaps lead us to form an opinion of...

That appearance as a historic fact must take its place in the order of historic events, and must stand in relation to what preceded and to what followed and is yet to follow. In...

The Hartford-Lamson Lectures on "The Religions of the World" are delivered at Hartford Theological Seminary in connection with the Lamson Fund, which was established by a group...

From this point of view, then, it should be clear that there is some deficiency in such a science as the science of religion, which, by the very conditions that determine its ex...

But, perhaps it may be said that, though the fetich does "possess personality," it is only when it has acquired sufficient personality to enjoy a proper name that it becomes a g...

The line of evolution thus followed by the belief in reincarnation results in the total separation of the belief from morality and from religion, and results in rendering it inf...

That in the phenomena of fetichism we encounter desires other than religious is beyond dispute: the use of a fetich is, as Dr. Nassau says, "to aid the possessor in the accompli...

That prayer is the essence, the very breath, of religion, without which it dies, is shown by the fact that amongst the very lowest races of mankind we find frequent traditions o...

What underlies this idea that by man alone is death brought into the world is that death is unnatural and is no part of the original design of things. When the fact comes to be...

Gods and worshippers, 53; and fetichism, 110; made and broken, 110; personal, 121; "departmental," 129; their personality, 130, 131; and the good of the community, 123; and feti...