both of their nature and of
the course of development which they respectively followed. This
method of inquiry has enabled us to gain an idea of the rise and
progress of Muhammedanism as such.

An attempt to explain the points of contact and resemblance between
the two religions naturally tends to obscure the differences between
them. Had we devoted our attention to Islam alone, without special
reference to Christianity, these differences, especially in the region
of dogmatic theology, would have been more obvious. They are, however,
generally well known. The points of connection are much more usually
disregarded: yet they alone can explain the interchange of thought
between the two mediaeval civilisations. The surprising fact is the
amount of general similarity in religious theory between religions so
fundamentally divergent upon points of dogma. Nor is the similarity
confined to religious theory: when we realise that material
civilisation, especially when European medievalism was at its height,
was practically identical in the Christian West and the Muhammedan
East, we are justified in any reference to the unity of Eastern and
Western civilisation.

My statements may tend to represent Islam as a religion of no special
originality; at the same time, Christianity was but one of other
influences operative upon it; early Arabic, Zoroastrian, and Jewish
beliefs in particular have left traces on its development. May not as
much be said of Christianity? Inquirers have seriously attempted to
distinguish Greek and Jewish influences as the component elements of
Christianity: in any case, the extent of the elements original to the
final orthodox system remains a matter of dispute. As we learn to
appreciate historical connection and to probe beneath the surface of
religions in course of development, we discover points of relationship
and interdependency of which the simple believer never even dreams.
The object of all this investigation is, in my opinion, one only: to
discover how the religious experience of the founder of a faith
accommodates itself to pre-existing civilisation, in the effort to
make its influence operative. The eventual triumph of the new religion
is in every case and at every time nothing more than a compromise: nor
can more be expected, inasmuch as the religious instinct, though one
of the most important influences in man, is not the sole determining
influence upon his nature.

Recognition of this fact c