taken place. It is by no means our purpose
to give an account of all the religions of the world, nor do we seek
to form a complete magazine of the curious phenomena with which this
vast field of study is in every part so well supplied. If we have
interposed the foregoing brief account of the religion of the Incas,
it is not because of its own intrinsic importance, but because it
supplies within so brief a compass such an apt example of that
process which occurs so often in the growth of religion, by which the
unorganised rites of a multitude of clans and families give way when
the nation comes into being, to the higher and better religion of the
state. In the same way the great religions of which we must next
speak have, no doubt, only a loose connection with the central line
of the world's religious progress. No work professing to deal ever so
cursorily with our subject could omit to deal with the religion of
China nor with that of Egypt; yet neither of these faiths perhaps has
permanently enriched the religious consciousness of mankind. The
religion of Babylonia, with which each of these is connected, was
also of isolated and independent growth, and is far away from us both
in time and in historical connection. Like great and solitary
mountains of ancient formation, each on a continent distant from
ours, these faiths attract us not because we depend on them, but
because they are interesting in themselves. It was out of the same
jungle of primitive beliefs and rites, out of which our own religion
has at length grown, that each of these lifted its head to such
heights as it attained.

After disposing of these great systems we come to the developments,
much later in point of time, which have led to the highest religion
yet attained. And here two great races or groups of peoples have to
be considered, each in its own way singularly gifted and each
contributing in a distinctive manner to the growth of religion. These
are the Semitic and the Indo-European families. Under each of these
heads we find several well-marked religions; and the nature of the
case itself points out our further procedure. Taking up first the
Semitic group,--including Islam,--since this part of the subject lies
at a greater distance from ourselves, we shall inquire whether there
is any common element in the various religions it comprises, or, in
other words, if there is a Semitic religion which may be regarded as
the origin from which the Semitic re