him by Christ (although, in all essentials, harmonizing, doubtless, with the current opinion of the infant Church) bears in its minuter structure, as well as in its general features, the impress of one single and striking individuality. And, still later in the history of Christianity, who can deny the influence of St. Augustine and the Fathers on the subsequent development of Catholicism; or of the peculiar genius of Calvin, Luther, Cranmer, or Knox, on the various sections of the Church most closely associated with their names? To the personal influence of theologians on the details of religious creeds, may also be added the personal influence of those great Temporal Potentates who have from time to time interfered, as did Roman emperors, and even empresses, in the deliberations of ecclesiastical Councils, and inspired or dictated decisions which still remain embodied in the Christian creed. And although these various personal and individual influences which have tinctured the body of religious thought as it has passed down the ages, have been more or less washed out by succeeding generations, when not in accord with their habits of thought, still, much that is the special product of personal individuality will remain after all deductions. If individual genius and character have thus had a great influence in modifying the minuter structure of religions, so, too, have those considerations of Expediency which have the effect of bringing religious beliefs into accord with existing moral and intellectual needs. As Civilization advances, the face of the world changes; the old structure of society breaks up; nations pass from despotic to feudal, and from feudal on to democratic forms of government and social organization; slavery is replaced by citizenship, and warfare by peaceful industry; and, at each transition, the new relations into which the different sections of society are thrown to each other have to be adjusted afresh. It was one of the most splendid instances of the practical sagacity of the Roman Catholic Church, that it sought, by means of the decisions of its Councils and its Popes, to add such new doctrine to the original body of revealed truth as would meet the new relations constantly springing up in a society which was undergoing vast transformations of structure; the only drawback being that, instead of making its decisions relative to the time and place, it was bound, by the nature of the case, to make them absolute, and binding in all times and in all places. The consequence was, that it was unable to retreat from any position which it had once taken up; and thus many of the old papal decisions, notably those against usury—the legitimate interest on money lent-and its fulminations against Science, remain as standing protests against its method and teaching. But we need not go back to the past to exemplify the effect of expediency in modifying the minuter structures of creeds, for at no time has this influence been more apparent than at the present. Within living memory, how different is the teaching of the Church on the most important points of Christian doctrine and practice; as, for example, on the nature and duration of future punishment, the six days' creation, the verbal inspiration of the Scriptures, the miracles of the Old and New Testament, as well as on Sunday observances, theatre-going, and the like. And, lastly, as explaining the minuter structure of religious forms, there is the power of Tradition, or the tendency there is in man to accept the old as the basis of future change, rather than to begin de novo; the effect being that much of the detail of religious doctrine and practice is made up of traditions that have floated down from the earlier times, modified or transformed to meet the necessities of the present hour. Much of the early ritual of Catholicism was merely the modification of Jewish and Pagan rites; and much of our present ritual is a modification again of these early forms, and can be traced back to them through all disguises. This tracing of the transformations which religious creeds and religious practices, on the one hand, have undergone from age to age; and of the circumstances of the world out of which they grew, and to which they were adapted, on the other; marks the extent, I may observe in passing, to which the Theory of Evolution can throw light on the great question of Religion. CHAPTER IV. IF MENTAL EFFECTS. F in the last two chapters we have correctly traced the great laws on which Religion is constructed, we shall now be in an easy position to estimate scientifically its effects on human life; as it is evident that the laws of the mind out of which it arises, must be the other side, as it were, of the necessities of the mind, which it is designed to meet. Now, the first law which we saw entered into the construction of Religion, was the law that we are bound, by our intellectual nature, to represent the Cause of things in terms of our own intellectual culture and standard of morality. The first great function, therefore, of Religion is to give satisfaction to the craving of the mind to know the cause and origin of things. A glance at the different religions of the world will show that they all have given just such answers to the question of the origin of things as best harmonized with the knowledge and moral culture of the peoples by whom they have been accepted. To the enquiry of the lowest savage and fetisch-worshipper, as to the cause of the phenomena around him, Religion replied that they were due to the wills of indwelling spirits like his own; and what more natural and harmonious explanation could be given him in his stage of culture, knowing nothing, as he did, of the natural causes of things? To the same enquiry by the great mass of the people who accepted the Polytheistic systems of Paganism, Religion answered that the great movements of Nature were due to the presiding influence of Jupiter, Neptune, Thor, and the rest; and no more natural answer could be given to these questions at the time these religions were promulgated. Of course, as Science and Culture advanced, these explanations became discredited among the learned and cultivated; but they still kept their hold on the vulgar mind until they were finally swept away by the new religion of Christianity, which not only gave an explanation of the cause of things more in harmony with the advanced state of civilization and culture, but which held out an ideal of life more in harmony with the new situation in which men found themselves, and with the new ideas that were beginning to appear as to the destiny of man. And for centuries, indeed, until quite recently, this religion of Christianity continued to give as credible an explanation as, in the existing state of knowledge, could be given of the origin of things and of the phenomena of human life. If it, too, after its splendid career, has at last become discredited by the cultured and enlightened, it still remains, consecrated by tradition and authority, the most feasible explanation which the great masses of men can give of the origin of the world and the nature of man. Now, if the first function of Religion is to furnish an answer to the question of the origin of the World and the phenomena of Human Life, in what respect, it may be asked, does it differ from Philosophy? In essence, not at all; for all religions were once philosophies, and to those who believe in them are so still. They may be, and indeed are, more than philosophies; but philosophies they certainly are. Ask, for example, the most ignorant type of Christian what his theory is of the cause and origin of Nature, of the cause and origin of the phenomena of human life, and his reply will be that the six days' creation of Genesis is a sufficient explanation to him of the cause and origin of Nature; and the Fall of Adam, and the original sin' transmitted by hereditary descent through that fall, is a sufficient explanation of the phenomena of human life. And what is this but his Philosophy of the world and of human life? It is the same, too, with other religious mythologies, which are merely the philosophies which the various peoples have of the world and of human life. Indeed, Religion may be defined to |