alluded to, is still fundamentally in
agreement with it, inasmuch as it also assumes that the differences
exhibited later in the history of religion at first were non-existent.
Both theories assume the existence of the originally homogeneous, but
they disagree as to the nature of the differences which supervened, and
also as to the nature of the originally homogeneous.

I wish therefore to call attention to the simple truth that the facts
at the disposal of the science of religion neither enable nor warrant
us to decide between these two views. If we were to come to a decision
on the point, we should have to travel far beyond the confines of the
science of religion, or the widest bounds of the theory of evolution,
and enquire why there should be error as well as truth--or, to put the
matter very differently, why there should be truth at all. But if we
started travelling {26} on that enquiry, we should not get back in time
for this course of lectures. Fortunately it is not necessary to take a
ticket for that journey--perhaps not possible to secure a return
ticket. We have only to recognise that the science of religion
confines itself to constating and tracing the differences, and does not
attempt to explain why they should exist; while the applied science of
religion is concerned with the practical business of bringing home the
difference between Christianity and other forms of religion to the
hearts of those whose salvation may turn on whether the missionary has
been properly equipped for his task.

If, now, I announce that for the student of the applied science it is
advisable that he should turn his attention in the first place to the
lowest forms of religion, the announcement need not be taken to mean
that a man cannot become a student of the science of religion, whether
pure or applied, unless he assumes that the lowest is the most
primitive form. The science of religion, as it pushes its enquiries,
may possibly come across--may even already have come across--the lowest
form to which it is possible for man to descend. But whether that form
is the most primitive as well as {27} the lowest,--still more, whether
it is the most primitive because it is the lowest,--will be questions
which will not admit of being settled offhand. And in the meantime we
are not called upon to answer them in the affirmative as a _sine qua
non_ of being admitted students of the science.

The reason for beginning with the lowest form