. Mr. Mueller's omission, moreover, from his
definition, of the practical side of religion, of the element of
worship, is a fatal objection to it. Belief and worship are
inseparable sides of religion, which does not come fully into
existence till both are present. In a later work[4] Mr. Mueller admits
the force of this objection, urged by several scholars, to his
definition, and modifies it as follows: "Religion consists in the
perception of the infinite under such manifestations as are able to
influence the moral character of man." In this form the definition
recognises that worship, the practical activity in which man's moral
character shows itself in fear, gratitude, love, contrition, is an
essential part of religion, and that perceptions of the infinite
apart from this are only one side of it. His original definition,
however, has played too large a part in the history of our subject to
be left without careful notice. The same objection applies to Mr.
Herbert Spencer's account of the matter. Mr. Spencer finds the basis
of all religion in the inscrutableness of the Power which the
universe manifests to us. The belief common to all religions, he
holds, is the presence of something which passes comprehension. The
idea of the absolute and unconditioned he regards as accompanying all
our consciousness of things conditioned and limited, and as being not
a negative notion, not merely the denial of limits, but a positive
one. The unconditioned is that of which all our thoughts and ideas
are manifestations, but which we never can know, with regard to which
we cannot affirm anything but that it exists. This definition like
that last noticed traces religion to the defects in man's knowledge,
and rather to a negative than a positive element in his experience.
It also comes under the objection that it traces religion rather to
an intellectual than a practical motive, and omits the element of
worship.
[Footnote 2: Though Mr. Tylor defines religion as the "belief in
spiritual beings," he is not to be charged with making it too much a
matter of the intellect. He uses the word belief in a wide sense as
including the practices it involves. In the word "spiritual,"
however, Mr. Tylor brings into the definition his theory of Animism,
and thus makes it unserviceable for those who do not adopt that
theory.]
[Footnote 3: _Introduction to the Science of Religion_, 1882, p. 13.
The definition was put forward in the year 1873, and in hi
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