K*'" -■ . 
 
 THE 
 
 CLASSIFICATION OF 
 RELIGIONS 
 
 BY 
 
 CHICAGO 
 
 THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 
 LONDON AGENTS 
 
 KEGAN PAUL. TRENCH. TRUBNER & CO., Ltd. 
 
 ISWiffMM 
 
 mismfom 
 
 snmiiiii 
 
THE 
 
 CLASSIFICATION OF 
 RELIGIONS 
 
 DIFFERENT METHODS, THEIR ADVANTAGES 
 AND DISADVANTAGES 
 
 DUREN J. H. WARD, PH. D. 
 
 I' 
 (leipsic) 
 
 ^ OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF 
 
 s£4LIF0RN^ 
 
 CHICAGO 
 THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 
 LONDON AGENTS 
 
 KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO., LTD. 
 
 1909 
 
3L3SV 
 
 
 Copyright by 
 
 The Open Court Publishing Co. 
 
 1909 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 EVERY analysis of religion proceeds from assumptions which 
 when written out or expounded become a philosophy. Hence 
 in the pages which follow we have an epitomization of some of the 
 leading philosophies of religion. The thoughtful study of these 
 analyses or classifications must surely lead to a better understanding 
 of the further problem, viz., of the nature of religion itself. Each 
 historic religion furnishes an example of some phase of the re- 
 ligious nature and tendency of mankind; and comparative analysis 
 shows how incompletely the fulness of religion, as we are coming 
 to see it, has been represented by each of them. With the vast 
 accumulation of facts before us, it is plain that no other feature of 
 human life has been so dominating. Taken up in the modern spirit, 
 no other study will repay the effort expended with so great an ex- 
 tension and illumination of view. 
 
 DuREN J. H. Ward. 
 Denver^ Colorado. 
 
 197985 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGX 
 
 Introduction i 
 
 Objective Illustrations : Their Sphere and Importance I 
 
 Some Recent Classifications of Religions 2 
 
 A. Classifications Based on Dogmatic Assumptions 3 
 
 B. Classifications from Objective Characteristics 8 
 
 I. According to the Nature of the Objects Worshiped 8 
 
 11. According to the Worshipers' Estimates of Their Deities. — Sir John 
 
 Lubbock II 
 
 III. According to the Part Played by Man in Their Development. — His- 
 
 torical Method 12 
 
 1. Prof. W. D. Whitney 12 
 
 2. Dr. A. M. Fairbairn 13 
 
 3. Prof. C. P. Tiele 17 
 
 IV. According to Their Usual Names, Locations, and Numbers of Ad- 
 
 herents. — Geographical and Statistical Method 32 
 
 1. Geographical Distribution 33 
 
 (i) About 1880 A. D 33 
 
 (2) About 1500 A. D 35 
 
 (3) About A. D 36 
 
 (4) About 400 to 500 B. C 37 
 
 2. Statistics 38 
 
 (i) From T. W. Rhys Davids 42 
 
 (2) From Justus Perthes Geographischer Anstalt 42 
 
 (3) G. Droysen's Historischer Handatlas 43 
 
 (4) Meyer's Hand-Lexikon 43 
 
 (5) Appleton's American Cyclopedia (Annual) 44 
 
 C. Classifications Based on Philosophies of Religion (Subjective). — Prof. 
 
 Otto Pfleiderer 45 
 
 D. 'Classifications Based on Racial Relationships. — Genealogical Method. . . 53 
 I. According to Linguistic Affinity. — Prof. F. Max Miiller 53 
 
 n. According to Ethnological Relationships and Historical Connections. 
 
 — A New Classification 64 
 
 Outlines of Inquiries for a Historico-Ethnical Study of Religions 'JZ 
 
THE CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Objective Illustrations : Their Sphere and Importance, 
 
 THERE is an old proverb which says: "Order is the 
 first law of Heaven/' and the consensus of men has 
 long ago decided that the laws of Heaven should be the 
 laws of earth. To labor without some law or system is to 
 fore-ordain fruitless result, although to be always order- 
 ing, or to be tied to a system, is no whit better. The one 
 is lawless disregard of just observances; the other is self- 
 enforced slavery to imaginary needs and requirements or 
 to principles held in exaggerated esteem. Somewhere 
 between these lines lies a successful mean. System and 
 classification are valuable, if they are used only as sugges- 
 tion. They must never shape the facts, but the facts 
 must shape them. Facts are many-sided and have many 
 relations. No system or classification can do more than 
 illustrate some oi these. If it does this, it has an important 
 value. If it cannot do this, it is valueless. If other phases 
 and relations are to be suggested, another classification is 
 necessary. Only shortsightedness will insist on the suffi- 
 ciency of one arrangement. Different purposes must have 
 their different methods. When system in the presentation 
 of complex or abstract thought takes the form of classi- 
 fications which may appeal to the eye, it has incalculable 
 value. Nearly every topic can by the exercise of a little 
 
2 THE CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. 
 
 ingenuity and energy be illustrated in an objective man- 
 ner in which the interest may be heightened and the im- 
 pression made more vivid and lasting. The justification 
 and importance of such an attempt lie in the nature of our 
 thought, so large a part of which is ordered in terms of 
 space and time. When the eye can be brought to the aid 
 of the imaging faculty a success may often be gained in 
 the grasping of a thought which would otherwise be a fail- 
 ure. Again, when a map, a diagram, or analytic chart 
 can be brought before the sight, not only are the above 
 results accomplished, but that most important end of all 
 education may be aided as in no other way, viz., the broad- 
 ening of the mind, since in this way the scope of a subject 
 and the internal and external relationships may be seen 
 at a glance in their wholeness and fulness. Indeed, a good 
 classification may do more in the way of suggestion and 
 further stimulation for a susceptible mind than the most 
 detailed explanation of the facts in a prosier way. For 
 such reasons as these, the subjects we are here considering 
 will be interspersed frequently with devices of various sorts 
 helping to make less the tediousness of the recital of facts 
 and aiding, it is hoped, towards an increase of interest and 
 a broader understanding. 
 
 Some Recent Classifications of Religions, 
 
 The subject of Religion is exceptionally susceptible of 
 classification. In recent times it has been often and in 
 various ways attempted : sometimes from the point of view 
 of the objects of worship, sometimes from historical se- 
 quences and characteristics, sometimes from certain philo- 
 sophical standpoints or to illustrate certain underlying phil- 
 osophical principles, and sometimes from an incongruous 
 mixture of different principles. The various methods of 
 classifications, so far as I have met them, fall severally 
 under one of the four following headings: 
 
THE CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. J 
 
 A. Classifications from certain preconceived assump- 
 tions or standards of authority based on philosophical or 
 theological dogma; 
 
 B. Classifications from external characteristics of the 
 religions, i. e., from the character of their individual, ob- 
 jective features and beliefs, or their mere names and num- 
 ber of adherents; 
 
 C. Classifications from the subjective side based on a 
 psychology of the subject, i. e., on the internal character- 
 istics ; 
 
 D. Classifications from racial relationships and from 
 actually traceable mutual historical influences (including 
 linguistic and other genealogical schemes). 
 
 All of these methods of grouping (even those under A) 
 have their value, often a very great one. They only over- 
 step their province when they claim to be the sole legitimate 
 method or even the best method. They can at most do 
 what it is possible for a classification to do, viz., illustrate 
 a certain general phase, relationship, tendency, etc. Each 
 must in the nature of the case omit the special advantages 
 of the others ; yet through all, the general character of the 
 subject may be seen, just as one can see and recognize the 
 same landscape from different points of view, while in 
 each new standpoint we get new and otherwise impossible 
 impressions. He will know it best who is at pains to view 
 it from all the available points. So in the study of religions, 
 the most varied views should be most welcome, so long as 
 they are not partial, overdrawn, or fantastically colored. 
 Only by various classifications and methods of study is it 
 possible to bring out the manifoldness of the great idea. 
 
 A. CLASSIFICATIONS BASED ON DOGMATIC ASSUMPTIONS. 
 
 Under this heading may in general be placed all classi- 
 fications which have occurred in Christendom down to 
 quite recent times. This holds true of both the most con- 
 
4 THE CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. 
 
 servative and liberal writers. Religions were of two clas- 
 ses : true and false, Christianity was true, all others ( in- 
 cluding its parent Judaism) were false; and to bring out 
 the opprobrium of the contrast most fully the term "Heath- 
 enism" was applied to the extra-Christian world. The 
 Jews would have dubbed them "Gentiles"; the Greeks, 
 "Barbarians." If there was any apparent truth among 
 the "heathen" it would be found in the end to be untrue, 
 or it was claimed that evil was so mixed with it as to render 
 its effects wholly bad. Neither in doctrine or cultus had 
 Christendom anything to learn from Heathendom. To 
 wicked priest-craft and to the Devil was assigned the origin 
 of all its institutions. They took advantage of the fallen 
 sinful condition of man, buried him with erroneous doc- 
 trines, and bound him in slavery to false worship and de- 
 basing superstitious practices. (Of course the writers 
 themselves were members of the true.) 
 
 A second theory on this basis having the same meaning 
 but couched in different terms, was that which classed 
 religions as natural and revealed."^ Yet in Christendom 
 this was an advance on the former in two ways: first it 
 enlarged the sphere of exclusiveness so that now both Juda- 
 ism and Christianity were included on the side of revealed 
 religions, while all others were invented or natural. Then 
 again the terms of description and contrast were milder, 
 although it was yet implied that the former were from 
 God and the others from man (the Devil not receiving 
 quite so large a share of credit). The natural religions 
 however were in no way sufficient for man's needs. He 
 had sunken from an original state of bliss and innocence 
 to so low a condition that supernatural Divine interposition 
 
 * It must be observed, that from the point of view of the adherents of 
 each religion, all the others are "false" and "natural" while theirs is "true" and 
 "revealed." Hence the religion that should stand on the one side over against 
 the others in the contrast of the legitimate against the illegitimate, would de- 
 pend entirely on the birth-place of the classifier. 
 
THE CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. 5 
 
 was necessary to prevent his utter ruin. The fatal con- 
 sequences of sin could in no other way be counteracted. 
 Hence we observe, the classing of religions was the outline 
 of the theological or rather doctrinal attitude toward them. 
 Theologians resting their faith on Church dogma could of 
 course have no other view. Hence even the most liberal 
 of them must hold this general attitude. James Foster in 
 a sermon on "The Advantages of a Revelation/' speaking 
 of the condition of the world at the birth of Christ, says : 
 "Just notions of God were, in general, erased from the 
 minds of men. His worship was debased and polluted, and 
 scarce any traces could be discerned of the genuine and 
 immutable religion of nature.'' Here is an unusually lib- 
 eral view of the so-called natural religion for a man of the 
 eighteenth century, yet it contains the denial of even the 
 comforts which this might have afforded to the men of 
 those times. From men of philosophical tendencies the 
 attitude was substantially the same. This could not be 
 otherwise from the belief which men universally held re- 
 garding the moral and religious state of primitive man. 
 They one and all believed him to have been originally per- 
 fect, they observed him to be far from that now. He must 
 have been degraded. They read of things in history re- 
 pulsive to their feelings and unseen in their circle of ex- 
 perience. They generalized this into the universal condi- 
 tion of the times alluded to. Distance in time and racial 
 dislike gave the imagination scope, and the consequence 
 was a theory anything but philosophical. John Locke, 
 ( 1 632- 1 704) one of the greatest if not the greatest English 
 mind of his day, referring to the times of the beginning of 
 the Christian era, says in his "Reasonableness of Christian- 
 ity" : "Men had given themselves up into the hands of their 
 priests, to fill their heads with false notions of the Deity, 
 and their worship with foolish rites, as they pleased; and 
 what dread or craft once began, devotion soon made sacred, 
 
THE CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. 
 
 and religion immutable/' "In this state of darkness and 
 ignorance of the true God, vice and superstition held the 
 world." Heathendom, all and entire, morally and relig- 
 iously was eschewed. Some of the Greek and Roman clas- 
 sical, authors were good to read as literature, and a few 
 writers upheld the study of Greek philosophy, notably the 
 "Cambridge Platonists,'' while the Logic of Aristotle was 
 generally in good repute. 
 
 But I must mention an opinion or two from Church 
 history, that we may better see the prevalent teaching of 
 the investigators and observe a further basis for this sort 
 of classification. Johann Lorenz von Mosheim (1694- 
 1755), one of the most widely read and influential writers 
 during the latter half of the i8th century and the first half 
 of the 19th, and a man revered for his great learning 
 and sincerity by the general use of his text-books during 
 a hundred years, says concerning this period in the first 
 chapter of his "Church History" : "All nations of the world, 
 except the Jews, were plunged in the grossest superstitions. 
 Some nations, indeed, went beyond others in impiety and 
 absurdity, but all stood charged with irrationality and 
 gross stupidity in matters of religion." "The worship of 
 these deities consisted in ceremonies, sacrifices, and pray- 
 ers. The ceremonies were, for the most part, absurd and 
 ridiculous, and throughout debasing, obscene, and cruel. 
 The prayers were truly insipid and void of piety, both in 
 their form and matter." "The whole pagan system had 
 not the least efficacy to produce and cherish virtuous emo- 
 tions in the soul; because the gods and goddesses were 
 patterns of vice, the priests bad men, and the doctrines 
 false." (Quoted by J. F. Clarke, Ten Great Religions, 
 2 1 St ed. B. 1884, PP- 5-6.) 
 
 A similar picture of the period spoken of may be found 
 in Geikie's Life and Words of Christ, If space permitted, 
 
 1 should illustrate this attitude from writers who construct 
 
THE CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. 7 
 
 their classification of present religions on this same basis. 
 And yet it is so general an assumption that we need not 
 ask to have it illustrated. The theory usually urged for 
 sending and sustaining Christian missionaries in various 
 parts of the world is an ever re-current witness of it. More- 
 over, if one is looking for the foundations of things, he may 
 find this assumption at the bottom of a vast amount of the 
 religious literature of our times. Without further com- 
 ment upon it, I will add a few lines from Dr. J. F. Clarke 
 (Ten Great Religions, p. 7) who in speaking of this atti- 
 tude toward the "ethnic" religions says: 
 
 "Apply a similar theory to any other human institu- 
 tion, and how patent is its absurdity! Let a republican 
 contend that all other forms of government — the patri- 
 archal system, government by castes, the feudal system, 
 absolute and limited monarchies, oligarchies, and aristoc- 
 racies — are wholly useless and evil, and were the result of 
 statecraft alone, with no root in human nature or the needs 
 of man. Let one maintain that every system of law (except 
 our own) was an invention of lawyers for private ends. 
 Let one argue in the same way about medicine, and say 
 that this is a pure system of quackery, devised by physi- 
 cians in order to get a support out of the people for doing 
 nothing. We should at once reply that, though error and 
 ignorance may play a part in all these institutions, they 
 cannot be based on error and ignorance only. Nothing 
 which has not in it some elements of use can hold its posi- 
 tion in the world during so long a time and over so wide a 
 range. It is only reasonable to say the same of heathen 
 or ethnic religions .... Unless they contained more of good 
 than evil, they could not have kept their place. They par- 
 tially satisfied a great hunger of the human heart. They 
 exercised some restraint on human wilfulness and passion. 
 They have directed, however imperfectly, the human con- 
 science toward the right.'' 
 
3 
 
 THE CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. 
 
 B. CLASSIFICATIONS FROM OBJECTIVE CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 /. According to the Nature of the Objects Worshiped. 
 
 This is the most general classification of those inclined 
 to be scholarly and broad. It not only has numerous rep- 
 resentatives in books, but is probably the only one that can 
 
 C Non-Religious Peoples, or A-Theism. 
 
 Fetichism 
 
 r Negroes of Central Africa 
 "I Some S. Amer. Indians 
 
 TOTEMIILM 
 
 Shamanism 
 
 Animism 
 
 Polytheism 
 
 { 
 
 Australians, etc. 
 
 N. E. Asiatic Peoples 
 N. Amer. Indians 
 Some Polynesians 
 Ancient Egyptians, etc. 
 
 Some N. Amer. Indians 
 " N. Asiaticans 
 
 '* Papuans, Tamans, New Hebridians, etc. 
 " Mohammedans, etc. 
 
 An element intermixed in the religions of all peoples 
 but especially characteristic of Chinese, Ancient Greeks 
 and Romans. 
 
 Greeks, Romans, and Germans of Ancient Times 
 All Ancient Semites 
 Ancient Hindus 
 Early Chinese and Japanese 
 Aztec-Toltecs 
 
 (Indeed, all religions, except Christianity, Mohammedan- 
 ism, and Judaism, when contrasted with Monotheism.) 
 
 " Persians (best representatives) 
 Modern Hindus (in certain respects) 
 Manichaeans of Middle Ages, 
 Some Christian and Mohammedan theories 
 
 r Jews generally since prophetic times 
 Monotheism "] Higher religious conceptions in Ancient India, Modern 
 ^ Europe, and Mohammedan lands 
 
 Upanishad and Vedanta Philosophers of India 
 
 Lao-Tsze of China 
 
 Eleatic School of Greece 
 
 Many Modern Mystics: Bruno, Eckhardt, Bohme, etc. 
 
 Idealists: Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, etc. 
 
 Realists: Spinoza, etc. 
 
 Dualism 
 
 Monism 
 
THE CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. 9 
 
 be said to be popular among those classifications that de- 
 serve respect as aspiring to be scientific. Several of its 
 divisions are in the most universal circulation, yet not all 
 of them are so well understood, hence I shall give and ex- 
 plain them more fully than would otherwise be necessary. 
 (See chart.) 
 
 1. Non-religious Peoples, if there be such, should be 
 mentioned first. Many reputable authorities claim to have 
 discovered tribes devoid of religious ideas. ( See the works 
 of Dr. Monnat, Sir Samuel Baker, David Livingstone, 
 Sir Messenger Bradley, and Sir John Lubbock.) The testi- 
 mony is disputed on the ground of its incompleteness and 
 for other reasons, hence I will place no peoples under this 
 topic. (Buddhism was at first an atheistic religion — i. e., 
 in any of the usual senses.) 
 
 2. Fetichism, the worship of simple and casually se- 
 lected objects which have come to be regarded as posses- 
 sing in some way a superior power, such as stones, bones, 
 shells, herbs, bits of wood, feathers, weapons, etc. In gen- 
 eral, this is the religious condition of those peoples in the 
 lowest stage of civilization, or the so-called "savage" state. 
 
 3. Totemism (or Nature Worship), the religious re- 
 gard of objects of nature in a somewhat larger and less 
 servile way, as of mountains, rocks, water, rivers, groves, 
 trees, animals (serpents, cattle, etc.), and, in higher forms, 
 the heavens, sun, moon, etc. This form of worship is found 
 with peoples a stage higher than the last. 
 
 4. Shamanism, in which the deities are of the most 
 diverse character, including the Fetichistic, Totemistic, and 
 polytheistic orders ; but the method of approaching them is 
 through magical formulas, incantations, etc., the perform- 
 ance or recital of which is believed to exercise an authority 
 over them. If properly carried out, it is believed to extort 
 from them the fulfilment of the applicant's wishes, whether 
 these be temporal present needs or the disclosure of future 
 
JO THE CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. 
 
 events. This form of religion is thought to be the dom- 
 inant characteristic of most of the so-called "barbarous 
 nations." 
 
 5. Animism, or the worship of ancestral spirits, is the 
 belief that the soul after death has special opportunities for 
 doing good or evil to the living, and hence is to be honored 
 or propitiated. It is very wide spread and can scarcely be 
 said to be the characteristic form of any stage of develop- 
 ment. 
 
 6. Polytheism, the worship of many gods. This is a 
 term capable of covering the whole range of religion below 
 monotheism, but which is best used to designate a stage in 
 which the gods are not longer natural objects, but entities 
 or spirits in or independent of these. It is the character- 
 istic of the religion of peoples on the border of or some- 
 what advanced in civilization, the so-called "civilized peo- 
 ples,'' as distinguished from the "enlightened" above and 
 "savage" below. 
 
 7. Dualism, the belief in two deities, one benevolent the 
 other malevolent, the form of religion that accounts for the 
 good and the evil of the world by referring each to a su- 
 preme cause having a nature in accord with the character 
 of its creations. 
 
 8. Monotheism, the faith that one all-wise, all-good, 
 and almighty being alone created, guides and governs the 
 universe for ultimate good ends. This Being is regarded 
 as a spirit transcendent to or over against the world of his 
 creation. The type attained by the great majority of peo- 
 ples in the most enlightened nations. 
 
 9. Monism, the view that the universe is a real unity in 
 which the manifold diversity is only apparent; that the 
 creating, guiding power and intelligence is immanent in it 
 and not above or over against it ; that the so-called material 
 and spiritual are qualitatively the same (by one school all 
 being regarded as material, by another as spiritual, and 
 
THE CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. II 
 
 by yet others the whole being spoken of as an unknown 
 essence). This division has no representatives among 
 nations or special peoples, but has been and is held by 
 various individuals and schools of thought in various ages 
 and various parts of the world. It embraces wide extremes, 
 and must comprehend most of those included under the 
 terms: idealists, phenomenalists, materialists, organicists, 
 mystics, spiritists, etc. 
 
 * * * 
 
 It will be observed that these terms are none of them 
 very definite, and that used combinedly in a classification 
 they are loose. Their suggestiveness at best is somewhat 
 vague, and without care is apt to be misleading, since it 
 will be found that no people arranges itself exclusively 
 under one of these headings, but that all of the varieties 
 are found among the highest nations, while even the lowest 
 peoples have some of the higher elements. Such religions 
 as Confucianism and Buddhism, having the most numerous 
 followings, really find no place in such a classification. 
 
 //. According to the Worshipers' Estimates of their 
 
 Deities. 
 Sir John Lubbock, a careful student of ethnology and 
 an investigator who has much to say worthy of hearing, 
 objects to the usual classification of religions according to 
 the nature of the objects worshiped. His method has some- 
 what of originality, though not more exact or by any means 
 so difiPerent from the method he refuses, as he believed it 
 to be. He proceeds to sort them over on the principle by 
 which the deity is estimated by the worshipers. The result 
 is a division of seven chief types. The first five are desig- 
 nated by terms in general use, the other two having no 
 specific name. I will give the whole for what they may 
 suggest. (See his Origin of Civilization, 4th ed., L., 1882,. 
 pp. 205-6.) 
 
12 THE CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. 
 
 1. *'A-theism; understanding by this term not a denial 
 of the existence of a Deity, but an absence of any definite 
 ideas on the subject." 
 
 2. '^Fetichism; the stage in which man supposes he can 
 force the deities to comply with his desires.'' 
 
 3. ''Nature-Worship or Totemism; in which natural 
 objects, trees, lakes, stones, animals, etc., are worshiped." 
 
 4. ''Shamanism; in which the superior deities are far 
 more powerful than man, and of a different nature. Their 
 place of abode also is far away, and accessible only to 
 Shamans." 
 
 5. "Idolatry or Anthropomorphism; in which the gods 
 take still more completely the nature of men, being, how- 
 ever, more powerful. They are still amenable to persua- 
 sion; they are a part of nature, and not creators. They 
 are represented by images or idols." 
 
 6. "In the next stage the deity is regarded as the author, 
 not merely a part of nature. He becomes for the first time 
 a really supernatural being." 
 
 7. 'The last stage is that in which morality is associated 
 
 with religion." 
 
 * * * 
 
 This classification attempts to proceed strictly on the 
 basis of progress in the development of religious ideas. 
 When practically applied, it is not less confusing than the 
 former, and is equally inadequate to define the character 
 of the religion of any given people; although in the last 
 two divisions it makes useful discriminations. 
 
 ///. According to the Part Played by Man in their Devel- 
 opment. — Historical Method. 
 
 I. Prof. W. D. Whitney, the celebrated Sanskrit scholar 
 and Orientalist of Yale College, has instituted the classi- 
 fication of religions into National and Individual. I will 
 let him explain himself. In an essay entitled, "On the 
 
THE CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. 
 
 13 
 
 So-called Science of Religion/' he says : "There is no more 
 marked distinction among religions than the one we are 
 called upon to make between a race religion — which, like 
 a language, is the collective product of the wisdom of a 
 community, the unconscious growth of generations^ — and 
 a religion proceeding from an individual founder, who, as 
 leading representative of the better insight and feeling of 
 his time (for otherwise he would meet with no success), 
 makes head against formality and superstition, and recalls 
 his fellowmen to sincere and intelligent faith in a new body 
 of doctrines, of especially moral aspect, to which he himself 
 gives shape and coherence. Of this origin are Zoroastrian- 
 ism, Mohammedanism, Buddhism; and, from the point of 
 view of the general historian of religions, whatever differ- 
 ence of character and authority he may recognize in its 
 founder, Christianity belongs in the same class with them, 
 as being an individual and universal religion, growing out 
 of one that was limited to a race." 
 
 H 
 "A 
 W 
 
 a, 
 o 
 
 > 
 
 Q 
 
 O ^ 
 'z ^ 
 
 < c/i 
 ^^ 
 fe '^ 
 
 CO ^ 
 
 <o 
 
 O 
 
 Spontaneous 
 or Natural - 
 
 Primitive Naturalisms 
 
 Transformed Naturalisms - 
 
 Instituted 
 
 Reformed Natural, 
 
 Early Greeks 
 
 " Hindus 
 
 '* Teutons 
 
 ' ' Slavonians 
 Polynesians 
 Indians 
 etc. 
 
 Later Greek and Roman 
 
 Egyptian 
 
 Ancient Chinese 
 
 etc. 
 
 Mosaism 
 Zoroastrianism 
 Confucianism 
 Taoism 
 
 Buddhism 
 
 Reformed Spiritual "^ Mohammedanism 
 
 Christianity 
 
 { 
 
 2. Dr. Fairbairn of Scotland, a man who has written 
 and lectured considerably on the comparative study of re- 
 
14 THE CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. 
 
 ligions, makes his classification on the same basis as that 
 of Professor Whitney, viz., from the part man's conscious 
 and individual intentions have played in bringing them to 
 the condition in which we find them in history. (Studies 
 in the Philosophy of Religion and History.) His terms 
 are different, though meaning practically the same. He 
 further subdivides the two main divisions, and, under these, 
 religions are cited as examples. (See Chart.) 
 
 ( 1 ) Spontaneous or Natural Religions, those that have 
 grown up out of a people collectively, e. g., the religion of 
 ancient Greece. These he further subdivides into : 
 
 (a) Primitive NaturaHsms. 
 
 (b) Transformed Naturalisms. 
 
 (2) Instituted Religions, or those which have their or- 
 igin in some great personality, e. g.. Buddhism, Zoroas- 
 trianism, Christianity, Mohammedanism, etc. This again 
 is of two kinds : 
 
 (a) Reformed natural religions, 
 
 (b) Reformed spiritual religions. 
 
 Each of these divisions, he claims, shades into the others. 
 Nature's gradations are too fine for our subtlest distinc- 
 tions. The naturalisms bring forth the historical ; the in- 
 stituted presupposes the spontaneous. 
 
 This classification too, like the others, calls attention 
 to certain facts which deserve notice. When not too care- 
 fully scrutinized the divisions offer useful intimations. 
 There is a sense in which certain religions are more spon- 
 taneous than others, or than the same are at later times. 
 The consciousness of man was not so active in early as in 
 later times. Moreover the simpler and less conscious 
 growths must have come to take on crystallized forms be- 
 fore the reforming recreative spirits could be operative, 
 and these efforts of the reformers and founders have again 
 a freshness and spontaneity which the same religion in 
 later times does not possess. Indeed, the latter is then to 
 
THE CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. 1$ 
 
 the former as an "instituted" to a "spontaneous'' religion. 
 Hence we perceive that in the end the division is only a 
 very relative one, i. e., that it has no intrinsic basis in the 
 nature of religions themselves, but only applies to temporal 
 changes coming about sooner or later in the process of all 
 religious development. Nor have the remarks "growing 
 up out of the people collectively" and "originating in some 
 great personality," any more than an intimative signifi- 
 cance. They are not divisions which correspond literally 
 to the facts. As to the first, it is only the darkness which 
 hovers over the history of nations in early times that en- 
 ables us to speak of spontaneous developments unaided by 
 great personalities, if humanity was governed by the same 
 general laws then that it has been within historic times 
 (and we have no ground to assume otherwise). We must 
 believe that compared with the rest of their contemporary 
 fellowmen, there have every now and then lived in the 
 world those great personalities which set in motion certain 
 influences relatively, though not entirely, new. And this 
 leads me to say of the second remark, viz., that about 
 certain religions "originating in great personalities," that 
 these great personalities are only in a very qualified sense 
 their originators. They are possessed of a broader, deeper 
 consciousness which takes up into itself the facts or light 
 of their age better and more thoroughly than others ; they 
 see more plainly and clearly the way the experiences of 
 mankind point; they draw more faithfully and truly the 
 higher inductions of their times: hence they become to 
 others the apparent originators, in some perhaps super- 
 natural way, of great ideas and religions. To themselves 
 and to those who can appreciate with them this fuller con- 
 sciousness and those more farreaching inductions, they are 
 not more a mystery than the rest of life's experience. It is 
 only to the mass of smaller minds that they appear origi- 
 
l6 THE CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. 
 
 nators in that absolute sense, or that they come indeed 
 later to be deified. 
 
 The remarks which are here passed are applicable alike 
 to the two presentations of this basis of classifying relig- 
 ions. The classification is suggestive and helpful, but it 
 is a mistake to suppose it either deeply grounded or final. 
 
 After writing the above my attention was called to the 
 fact that Prof. Max Mliller (although adopting a classi- 
 fication equally untenable when exclusively insisted upon) 
 had objected to this method of classification before Pro- 
 fessor Whitney's essay was published, on similar ground 
 to that which is here taken, viz., that though neither Brah- 
 man, Greek, nor Roman could point to the founder of his 
 religion, yet "the student of antiquity can still discover the 
 influence of individual minds or schools or climates. If on 
 the other hand we ask the founders of so-called individual 
 religions, whether their doctrine is a new one, whether 
 they preach a new God, we almost always receive a nega- 
 tive answer. Confucius emphatically asserts that he was 
 a transmitter, not a maker ; Buddha delights in represent- 
 ing himself as a mere link in a long chain of enlightened 
 teachers; Christ declares that he came to fulfil, not to de- 
 stroy the Law or the Prophets ; and even Muhammed in- 
 sisted on tracing his faith back to Abrahym, i. e., Abraham, 
 the friend of God, whom he called a Moslim, and not a 
 Jew or Chrstian, (Koran iii, 60) and who, he maintained, 
 had founded the temple at Mekka. To determine how 
 much is peculiar to the supposed founder of a religion, how 
 much he received from his predecessors, and how much was 
 added by his disciples, is almost impossible ; nay, it is per- 
 fectly true that no religion has ever struck root and lived, 
 unless it found a congenial soil from which to draw its 
 strength and support." (See Science of Religion, 140.) 
 
 Professor Tiele, objecting to this same method, asks, 
 'What is the wisdom of a community but the wisdom of its 
 
THE CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. 1/ 
 
 more enlightened members, that is, of individuals ?" Every 
 myth, rite, or eternal truth, in any religion was the work 
 of an individual mind, and I must re-affirm that it is only 
 from the fact of their lying so much in the dark, that we 
 speak of unconscious growths and spontaneous generation. 
 
 Moreover, these founders could have no success if they 
 were so supremely and vastly ahead of their people as is 
 hinted. What they spoke was only waiting in others' 
 hearts for a mouth-piece. It is just because their better 
 insight gathers up into itself merely in clearer manner 
 what many less clearly feel, because they are able to lend 
 shape to the more advanced ideas which the community 
 has already come up to and which are already agreeable 
 to the minds of many as soon as expressed. Individuals are 
 ever at work, and the community is ever making some sort 
 of growth. The one is conscious, the other not ; but neither 
 goes on without being in a true sense the product of the 
 other. Sometimes in the course of events the individual's 
 opportunities are greater and his efforts shine forth in 
 more glaring light, but the underlying relationship and 
 bond of mutual dependence is never broken. 
 
 It must further be observed that in most cases these 
 founders never shaped new bodies of doctrines, etc., but 
 by inspiration of their life infused new and pregnant prin- 
 ciples into others who later developed them into doctrines 
 and founded upon them ceremonies, which in time became 
 a great body of faith and practice, or another religion. 
 
 3. Professor Tiele, starting from this same external 
 historic characteristic, has developed a classification far 
 more tenable than either that of Professor Whitney or of 
 Dr. Fairbairn. (See Outlines of the History of Religion 
 to the Spread of the Universal Religions. Tr. by J. E. 
 Carpenter, L. 1877. [New ed. in Dutch and German.] 
 Also especially, his later statement in Encyc, Brit,, 9th ed. 
 art. "Religion.") This comes from the fact that he has 
 
l8 THE CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. 
 
 penetrated beneath this external shell to the deeper mean- 
 ing. He has, in the process, gone away from the mere 
 historic phenomena to a philosophical distinction which is 
 to be made between them. Nevertheless his treatment 
 must be placed with historical classifications, because he 
 looks at this difference as one that has come about in the 
 process of development ; in other words, the difference be- 
 tween his two great classes, though one intrinsic in kind, 
 is at bottom evolutionally considered a difference of de- 
 grees or stages. The higher was once on the same stage 
 in which we find the lower; the lower in course of time 
 would naturally reach the higher. He claims that the 
 essence of such divisions as that made by Prof. Whitney 
 is true. "The principle of the one category is nature, that 
 of the other ethics J' Hence he makes these the basis of his 
 "morphological" classification of religions. (See Encyc. 
 Brit. 9th ed. "Religion.'' See also accompanying chart.) 
 With great differences in their degrees of elevation, 
 the nature religions agree fundamentally in the fact that 
 the supreme gods are "the mighty powers of nature, be 
 they demons, spirits, or men-like beings, and ever so highly 
 exalted." They are subject to change and progress through 
 the unconscious drift of public opinion, and by the con- 
 scious alterations and additions of foreign modes of wor- 
 ship. "Gods are more and more anthropomorphized ; rites, 
 humanized." Then too they are susceptible of a moral 
 progress, which begins by ascribing ethical attributes to 
 the highest gods. Farther on in the more advanced stages 
 of nature worship, ethical abstractions are personified, dei- 
 fied, and worshiped, at first indiscriminately and indistin- 
 guishably intermixed with the nature gods. By and by the 
 stronger and clearer minds (the philosophers, sages, 
 prophets) begin to perceive the difference. To them the 
 latest elements or deities are of overshadowing — indeed 
 of sole — importance. They preach the predominance of 
 
THE CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. 
 
 19 
 
 the moral. Persecution ensues. The defenders of the old 
 faith abhor these independent spirits whose mission is to 
 
 PoLYDAEMONisTic Magical. (Under Animistic control.) (Including 
 the degraded religions of so-called savage and uncivilized peoples.) 
 
 Japanese Kamino-m|i4M. 
 Dravidians ^^ 
 
 Finns and Ehsts 
 
 < o 
 
 o w 
 o « 
 
 en 
 
 U 
 
 Therianthropic Poly- 
 theism 
 
 (Purified or Organized 
 Magical) 
 
 Anthropomorphic 
 Polytheism 
 
 (Worship of man-like, 
 but super-human and 
 semi-ethical beings.) 
 
 r National Nomistic 
 (Nomothetic). 
 
 Universalistic 
 
 Unorganized 
 
 Old Arabic 
 " Pelasgic 
 " Italiote 
 ' • Etruscan 
 • ' Slavonic 
 
 ^ Organized. . . 
 
 Semi-civil- 
 ized peoples 
 of America. 
 
 Maya 
 Natchez 
 Toltec- 
 Aztec 
 Muysca 
 Inca 
 Ancient Chinese 
 ' ' Babylonian 
 (Chaldean) 
 " Egyptian 
 
 Vedic 
 
 Pre-Zarathustrian 
 Younger Babylonian 
 and Assyrian 
 
 Semites of 
 
 Celtic 
 Germanic 
 Hellenic 
 Graeco-Roman 
 
 Phoenicia 
 Canaan 
 Aramaea 
 South Arabic 
 Sabaean. 
 
 '{ 
 
 Ancient 
 Modern 
 
 Taoism 
 
 Confucianism 
 
 Brahmanism 
 
 Jainism 
 
 Primitive Buddhism 
 
 Mazdaism (Zarathustrianism) 
 
 Mosaism 
 
 Judaism 
 
 Islam 
 
 Buddhism 
 
 Christianity. 
 
 them'mere destruction. They speak in derision of the pure 
 abstractions by which these innovators would dethrone 
 
20 THE CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. 
 
 the old and trusted gods of the fathers, and if the ancient 
 faith has not lost too greatly its hold on the masses (as it 
 generally has not at these early stages) , these high thinkers 
 — Socrates, Jesus, etc. — may pay the penalty of their ele- 
 vation by premature and violent deaths. These simpler 
 and more sensuous faiths with true instincts perceive the 
 danger to the old traditions if such doubt and preaching 
 are allowed to go on unmolested. A little infiltration may 
 be tolerated, may indeed give an agreeabfe vivacity to 
 religious life; "but the reform must not exceed certain 
 limits," for if it does, the old forms would plainly become 
 superfluous. Finally when the new ideas have become 
 wide-spread enough, the old ones meet the doom which 
 from the first awaited them. No help can do more than 
 make the process gradual; no arguments, however spe- 
 cious, no claims of sacredness, no assertions about superior- 
 ity or universality can make, head against the on-coming 
 intellectual tendency. "No political power, no mighty priest- 
 hood, no poetry, no mysticism like that of the Neo-Platon- 
 ists, no romanticism like that of Julian, not eVen an at- 
 tempt to imitate the organization and the rites of an ethical 
 religion, can save it any longer from utter decay." 
 
 The tide of religious conception is now turned. The 
 old nature religion may now be considered as advanced to 
 the stage of an ethical religion, in that the predominant 
 characteristic has changed. The traditional naturistic ele- 
 ments are not wholly set aside or excluded, but they are 
 subordinated and assume somewhat of ethical functions. 
 The more important of the old nature gods survive, but 
 no longer occupy first places and dominate. On the con- 
 trary they take menial positions, become serving spirits, 
 ministers, angels (dyyeXoi, yazatas, etc.) before the su- 
 preme moral Orderer of the universe. A great breadth 
 of conception has entered in. Man views the world not 
 so much in its former conflicting diversities. The natur- 
 
THE CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. 21 
 
 istic religious standpoint has been reversed. The poly- 
 daemonistic and polytheistic character is tending to mono- 
 theism. The polytheism is at least becoming organized 
 and monarchical. To this is added greater individualism 
 among the adherents. Conscious speculation, imagination 
 and reflection increase. Growth goes on more by these 
 than by unconscious national accumulation or change. Some 
 higher central notion of a more definite sort of salvation 
 to be attained comes into prominence. Organization for 
 the purpose of fostering and propagating this idea takes 
 place. Men bind themselves more closely together to aid 
 in practicing it, and the religion is finally "instituted or 
 organized" by later hands ; v^hile we may merely say it was 
 "founded" by or received its original impulse from an in- 
 dividual or body of priests or teachers. These later or- 
 ganizers always ascribe to the "founders" a high standing 
 in relationship with the Divine. They stand as inspired 
 prophets to whom the Deity has revealed his will, as mes- 
 sengers expressly sent to direct men, as sons of the gods 
 instructed with various missions, or indeed, as incarnations 
 of God himself. So much on the general divisions of the 
 topic. 
 
 Subdivision of Nature Religions. (See chart). Pro- 
 fessor Tiele calls the very earliest stage of religion the 
 Polyzoic. This he does not place in the outline, since we 
 have UT? information concerning it. He thinks "man, in 
 that primitive stage, must have regarded the natural phe- 
 nomena, on which his life and welfare depend, as living 
 beings endowed with superhuman magical power; and his 
 imagination, as yet uncontrolled by observation and rea- 
 soning, must frequently have given them the shape of 
 frightful animals, monstrous portentous mythical beings, 
 some of which still survive in the later mythologies." 
 
 The earliest stage with which we have an acquaintance, 
 he names the Polydaemonistic Magical. Animism is the 
 
22 THE CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. 
 
 predominating characteristic, though the reHgion is not 
 mere animism. Animism is a sort of primitive philos- 
 ophy. The primitive mind has come to beheve in a spirit 
 which is superior to the body. This he extends to the 
 phenomena of nature by supposing them to be the work 
 of spirits of departed men. This is extended till everything 
 living, moving, startling, extraordinary, is finally attrib- 
 uted as the work of mighty spirits moving freely here and 
 there and abiding either permanently or temporarily in 
 this or that object or region. The most powerful among 
 them come to attain in man's mind the rank of divine be- 
 ings, and are worshiped either as invisible or embodied 
 spirits (spiritism or fetichism). Three special character- 
 istics of this stage are noticeable: (i) Its confused and 
 indeterminate mythology, though some spirits are more 
 powerful than others, especially the heavenly, and in gen- 
 eral there is a supreme spirit of heaven who is mightiest 
 of all; (2) The implicit confidence in magic through which 
 sorcerers and fetich-priests come to be held in such venera- 
 tion; and (3) The predominance of fear over all other feel- 
 ings and the doing of religious acts generally for selfish 
 ends. 
 
 Therianthropic Polytheism is the name given to the 
 next higher stage. The name is intended to describe the 
 character in which the gods usually appear, viz., in the 
 forms of animals and men, yet predominantly the former. 
 They are really spiritual conceptions embodying themselves 
 in these ways. Animal worship is everywhere in such 
 religions a prominent characteristic. The gods are repre- 
 sented as men with animal heads, or as animals with human 
 heads. Such religions have yet an element of magic, but 
 it is in the hands of an organized priesthood, hence they 
 are characterized as purified or organized magical relig- 
 ions. These practices are forbidden to private sorcerers, 
 and in the hands of the priesthood have a developed ritual. 
 
THE CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. 2^ 
 
 Some are very highly organized, others little. Some ap- 
 proximate very closely to the next higher stage of pure an- 
 thropomorphism, others closely to the next lower, of ani- 
 mistic predominance. In the former there is a strong 
 tendency to monotheism, accompanied by a sort of theo- 
 cratic government in which the king is the living repre- 
 sentative of the king of the gods. 
 
 Next in order are the Aiithropomorphic Polytheisms, 
 the highest stage in the naturistic religions. These, as 
 well as all the higher forms, contain many survivals of the 
 characteristics of the earlier stages, yet those features have 
 been adapted to newer ones and no longer predominate, 
 and consequently the religion deserves another name. The 
 gods are now all superhuman and manlike, rulers of nature, 
 effecting good and evil. They are more ethical than the 
 former, yet the mythology is sensual in character. Wars, 
 wooings, revelries, and the lowest passionate indulgences 
 are exceedingly frequent. Such myths, of course, were 
 shocking to graver thinkers, but they formed the staple 
 for the masses till the time of naturistic religious decay. 
 "Not one of the religions in the polytheistic stage was able 
 to elevate itself to the purely ethical standpoint; but, as 
 moral consciousness went on increasing, deeper and more 
 ethical religious ideas gathered round the persons of the 
 most humane gods, the beloved son or daughter of the 
 supreme deity, and gave rise to purer modes of worship 
 which seemed to be forebodings of a time to come." 
 
 Subdivision of Ethical Religions. — The question of sub- 
 dividing this class into Nomistic and Universalistic relig- 
 ions has called forth considerable discussion. The essential 
 difference consists in the features that the former are based 
 on sacred law drawn from sacred books, while the latter 
 start from principles and maxims. (On the soundness of 
 this asserted difference more will be said later.) Professor 
 Kuenen used the expression ''National Religions and Uni- 
 
24 THE CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. 
 
 versal Religions'' as the title of his Hibbert Lectures, 
 (1882). He excluded Islam from the latter. Several 
 other terms have been proposed for this class. Among 
 the rest "world religions" and "world churches." The lat- 
 ter title was given by Professor Rauwenhoff (Theol. Tijd- 
 schrift, 1885, No. i), who, however, rejects this method of 
 classification. Professor Tiele himself would not use the 
 term "world religions," unless as a sort of practical desig- 
 nation "to distinguish the three religions which have found 
 their way to different races and peoples and all of which 
 profess the intention to conquer the world, from such com- 
 munities as are generally limited to a single race or nation, 
 and, where they have extended farther, have done so only 
 in the train of, and in connection with, a superior civili- 
 zation." He granted that strictly speaking there can be 
 only one world or universal religion. No religion has any 
 claim to such a title from its achievements, whatever it may 
 have in it potentially. Hence he adopted the more modest 
 title "universalistic," in place of "universal" or "world," 
 religions. Buddhism and Christianity are distinguished 
 from Confucianism, Brahmanism, Jainism, Mazdaism, and 
 Judaism, by their missionary spirit. The latter, after each 
 becoming the religion of a single race, have ceased to 
 spread, and after centuries of stiffening into dogmatism 
 and formalism are slowly fading away; while the former 
 number their adherents by hundreds of millions, are spread- 
 ing among different races, and are rapidly making inroads 
 upon the territory of other faiths. 
 
 This, said Professor Tiele, "cannot be due to some for- 
 tuitous or external circumstances only, but must have its 
 principal cause in the very nature of each sort of religion." 
 By other terms he described the one class as "nationalistic" 
 or "particularistic" in contrast with the "universalistic." 
 The three religions belonging to the latter class aspire to 
 represent religious ideas which were not limited to the 
 
THE CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. 2$ 
 
 nation's horizon, but which would have an interest for 
 humanity, which would bespeak the general aspirations of 
 the human heart. For this reason, two of these religions 
 were rejected by the peoples to which their founders be- 
 longed by birth, and the third one, Mohammedanism, 
 though founded by an Arab, derived its fundamental ideas 
 from Jews and Christians and was raised to its high posi- 
 tion by Persians and other peoples. Its unnational char- 
 acter is shown in the fact that its converts, whether made 
 by force of arms or by missionary exertions, enjoy on em- 
 bracing Islam the same rights and dignities as Arabs. So 
 too Buddhism "looks for the man, the miseries of existence 
 beset all alike, its law is a law of grace for all." That so 
 broad is the Christian aim at its best, need not be here sup- 
 ported. 
 
 Though not on the same level, these religions are 
 classed together because of their resemblance in ori- 
 gin and aim. Islam and Buddhism are only relatively 
 universalistic, each showing the onesided religious devel- 
 opment of its race at its highest. Islam emphasizes the 
 absoluteness of the divine side at the expense of the human. 
 Man is of no importance, hence he has but one duty, obe- 
 dience. In such a system ethics cannot develop. Society 
 must be conducted on a despotic basis. Buddhism puts the 
 stress wholly on the human side. It knows no divine. 
 Man must save himself by his own exertions. Self-renun- 
 ciation, full and entire, is the way of escape from the mis- 
 eries of life. The more truly religious has no place; or 
 if it develops at all, it results in a childish fantastic myth- 
 ology. 
 
 On Professor Pfleiderer's basis, that religion is the 
 synthesis of dependence and liberty, Islam represents the 
 former, Buddhism the latter. (Cf. this with Pfleiderer's 
 classification farther on.) Christianity in its purest forms 
 
26 THE CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. 
 
 fuses the two, dependence and liberty, the divine and the 
 human, reHgion and ethics, into a real unity. 
 
 We have in this classification, on the v^hole, the most 
 profound and profitable grouping thus far considered. In 
 its development we receive many valuable suggestions. 
 But good as we see it to be, satisfied or flattered as we may 
 feel ourselves over the result, still we must as far as pos- 
 sible look at all the facts in these matters, and be governed 
 as little as possible by our prejudices, desires, and the cir- 
 cumstances of where and under what influences we were 
 born. In the spirit of such an outlook and such an attempt, 
 several things must be said about this classification. 
 
 In the first place, to distinguish between nomistic and 
 universalistic ethical religions on the ground given, is prac- 
 tically to make distinctions on the basis of features where 
 there is no essential difference. Buddhism, Christianity, 
 and Mohammedanism are each as truly sacred book reli- 
 gions as Confucianism, Judaism, etc. But they are in ad- 
 dition what he describes them — religions based on prin- 
 ciples and maxims, on great central dominating ideas. This 
 more definite characteristic, together with the facts that 
 their bodies of doctrine cluster around distinct personali- 
 ties, and that they have operated under more favorable 
 opportunities as to civilization and coincidences in time, 
 have largely occasioned their superior successes. He ad- 
 mits that other religions have extended farther than their 
 race limits ''in the train of or in connection with superior 
 civilization." 
 
 He distinguishes Buddhism and Christianity from the 
 others by the fact that they are trying to make proselytes, 
 while the others are doing so no more. But Islam cannot 
 be excluded from this desire and activity. Again, the con- 
 trast shown between this feeling in their adherents and its 
 absence in those of others, is due more to the superior 
 moral development of those of their peoples who are so 
 
THE CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. 2/ 
 
 engaged, than to an essentially restrictive national char- 
 acter of the religious side of those religions who are not 
 so engaged. I say religious side of the religions, because 
 we must not in our enthusiasm over and emphasis of the 
 morality connected with a religion forget that this does 
 not constitute the whole religion. Religion has its moral 
 side, but morals are not religion. Religion should no doubt 
 be helpful in the development of morals; but though it be 
 of inestimable importance, this must not reach an eclipsing 
 character. To make religion morality, and then to make 
 morality our kind of morality, would be an easy way to 
 decide that some peoples are devoid of both. But this is 
 not science. When we say, this or that religion is not mak- 
 ing proselytes, we must look for reasons before deciding 
 that this is an intrinsic defect in the religion per se. It may 
 be, as above indicated, from lack of moral development of 
 the beneficent unselfish feeling of the people quite apart 
 from any thing which the religious outlook alone would 
 necessitate. It may be from other circumstances beyond 
 the power of the votaries to hinder, e. g., we know that 
 many religions are in a state of decay brought about by 
 the destruction of their political support and by persecu- 
 tions. Sometimes it may be from poverty of material re- 
 sources to undertake. Sometimes, alas, by internal dog- 
 matic development and formalistic decay. But from this 
 last we must confess that the great missionary religions 
 have not been free, and have in some countries hardened 
 into as dead and disinterested a formalism as others. Wit- 
 ness Spain, Turkey, and Ceylon. Nor can we be at all cer- 
 tain that their fate would have been measurably different 
 among those races, climates and environments where we 
 find dormant and fading faiths. It may even be doubted 
 whether the great religions accompanied by their best rep- 
 resentative peoples would have maintained a living pro- 
 gressive faith under such political and climatic circum- 
 
28 THE CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. 
 
 stances during thousands of years. It must be further 
 observed, that below certain limits of intelligence, men 
 will believe what they are taught. Men of faith would find 
 no difficulty in being men of another faith, if the fates of 
 life had put them in such an environment. It is only when 
 a high degree of individuality of thought has made them 
 think for themselves, that a religion becomes unbearable. 
 
 Along this same line of thought, his remark that the 
 three universalistic religions were representatives of re- 
 ligious ideas which had in view not the special religious 
 wants of the nation, but the more general aspirations of 
 humanity, can scarcely be admitted as sound. Every de- 
 votee of every distinct faith or sect in the world believes 
 that his religion represents just such ideas as would be 
 of general interest to the race, if only he could get the 
 race to see its interest and its duty of accepting his belief. 
 He pities, deplores, complains, exhorts, or despairs and 
 damns, according to the doctrines of his order, those who 
 do not. 
 
 It is going too far to say that Buddhism and Christian- 
 ity were rejected by the peoples to whom their founders be- 
 longed because they represented universalistic rather than 
 national ideas. As stated above, the parent religions were 
 full of the faith that their teachings were just such as the 
 world as a whole needed, indeed must have, if it ever 
 received salvation. Rather was it because the new faiths 
 rejected and despised the old means, that they themselves 
 were spurned and persecuted by the parent religions. It is 
 true, they were a great advance in sympathy toward the 
 world, and hence also a liberalized outlook. The new way 
 of looking at religion filled the early adherents with new 
 enthusiasm, new hope, and new confidence that the world 
 could be brought to see and believe in this way (as new 
 ways of looking at any cause, in or out of religion, always 
 inspires to this) ; but that they any more seriously than 
 
THE CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. 29 
 
 their predecessors in the old faith believed themselves to 
 possess religious ideas of world-wide rather than national 
 interest, is erroneous, and results in a denial to the old 
 faiths of that which is essential to any and every faith. 
 The faith of any individual or any people must necessarily 
 in his or their mind be the faith for the world. If he or 
 they do not preach it, it is either because external cir- 
 cumstances do not permit, because it lacks definiteness 
 and clearness in the believer's own mind, or because they 
 are so engrossed in its formalities as to be oblivious to 
 what if conscious they would regard as others needs. If 
 those founders of new religions had sought to generate a 
 world-wide enthusiasm over the old lines and methods, 
 history teaches us that they would never have been cast off. 
 They cast themselves off before others cast them off. The 
 founders and establishers opened the conflict by an absolute 
 renunciation of the forms of the current religion. It might 
 have been difficult, perhaps practically impossible, to have 
 brought forward the new ideas with the continuance of all 
 the old forms and methods. It is a historic fact that the 
 idea which each of these three great faiths embodied was 
 taken up by parties within the old religions, but only to a 
 very limited extent were they successful. Why they were 
 not more so, would be very difficult to ascertain. In Jain- 
 ism we have the "national" form of the Buddhistic idea; 
 in Ebionitism that of Christianity ; and possibly in the Wah- 
 habites that of Islam. Perhaps at certain junctures of 
 conditions a complete break with the old is the very best 
 that can be done, although in general growth up, out of, 
 and above is healthier, more enduring, and apt to be more 
 wide-spread than reform by reaction and opposition. How- 
 ever, this is not here our present concern, but merely to 
 see, in the truest light we can, why these faiths were not 
 more lastingly successful among their own peoples. There 
 might be many other reasons given. I will mention only 
 
30 THE CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. 
 
 one, regarding the attitude of Judaism to Christianity, viz., 
 that the position or too close relationship to God which 
 both Jesus himself claimed and his followers who wrought 
 out the doctrines more fully demanded for his personality, 
 was revolting to the highly developed Jewish monotheistic 
 sense of that time. The development of the conception as 
 to the person of Christ had come about with the aid of ideas 
 then prevalent which had their origin in Greek semi-mytho- 
 logical philosophy. The Jewish Semites had had for cen- 
 turies no taste for mythology. The Prophets had drilled 
 them into loyalty to Jehovah alone. He had no progeny 
 nor co-rulers. Pauline theology set Christ up as his deity 
 son, made him in many respects equal with God, and as- 
 signed to him a conspicuous part in the moral government 
 and management of the world. Indeed, the primitive Chris- 
 tian idea added a new feature to the character of the Deity, 
 but instead of putting it into the character of Jehovah, it 
 embodied it in a new god or personage which it set up 
 beside him. In this difference and claim alone we have 
 nearly a sufficient explanation of the Jewish rejection of 
 the new faith. To our day, this has remained the great 
 and all hindering objection to Christianity by the Children 
 of Israel. From their standpoint, it had its basis in myth- 
 ology and idolatry ; and since the days when the Decalogue 
 was written, nothing has been more repugnant to a faithful 
 son of Abraham than these. 
 
 Ethically the new faiths have, speaking in a general 
 way, an intrinsic advantage, and this advantage was a 
 natural outgrowth of the circumstance of an improving 
 social development in the time of their origins. ( See Prof. 
 J. R. Seeley's Ecce Homo for an excellent exposition of the 
 social and moral causes at work in the Roman Empire at 
 the beginning of the Christian era.) Moreover, this eth- 
 ical advantage of these faiths would have availed nothing, 
 had it not been for the indispensable aid afforded to their 
 
THE CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. 3I 
 
 success by the improving social and ethical relations. But 
 we must again remind ourselves, that however important 
 ethics may be for the practical every-day purposes of life, 
 ethics is not all of religion. A classification might be made 
 on the basis of the metaphysical characteristics of the ob- 
 jects of faith, in which case it would be impossible by the 
 best results of our highest philosophy and science to sustain 
 the assertion that these three great religions are more 
 "universalistic" or more true to the facts than Brahman- 
 ism, Confucianism, or Mazdaism. Philosophy and Science 
 have scarcely settled the question as to whether the truth 
 lies with monistic idealism, monistic realism, or dualism. 
 Nor have they been able to decide positively which is the 
 more inspiring as a philosophy of life. Until something more 
 definite is agreed upon regarding this more religious side 
 of religion, it will not do for us to be too dogmatic in our 
 assertions of superiority here or there merely on ethical 
 grounds. Down to the present, ethics have been the fea- 
 ture of apparently greatest importance, yet we are not in 
 the least sure but that when society shall have reached a 
 relatively high moral development in which the crying de- 
 mands of "live and let live'' are heeded without great exer- 
 tion, the ethical feature of religion will sink to be a matter 
 of minor significance. 
 
 And now a final remark as to the confusion regarding 
 the meaning of such terms as Christianity, Buddhism, etc. 
 If, e. g., we mean by Christianity the teachings of its 
 founder and establishers, we are constantly in danger of 
 confounding ( if we do not actually do so) the objective meta- 
 physical and physical sides of that early (and to us the 
 genuine) Christianity with nineteenth century ideas of 
 theism and the universe. On a second thought, after turn- 
 ing to history, we perceive that increasing knowledge of 
 facts and laws is gradually supplanting the early Christian 
 ideas of the universe and with this changing the conception 
 
32 THE CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. 
 
 of God. Again, if we mean by Christianity the standards 
 of thought and duty of to-day prevalent among enhghtened 
 nations, the body of belief regarding the universe and 
 man's relation to it and to his fellows, we perceive that we 
 have undermined the ground of our frequent appeal to the 
 original type as authority. For except in the spirit of sym- 
 pathy, love or universal brotherhood, which is the common 
 ideal of the two, they are as different as 1800 years of vary- 
 ing fortune could make them. Hence our appeal must take 
 the character of a resource for inspiration and a refresh- 
 ment of courage. Whichever or whatever our position, 
 we should endeavor to avoid such an incoherent mixing 
 of facts and principles and periods as that so often met with. 
 
 IV. Geographical and Statistical Method. 
 
 The last was the method of time. This is that of space. 
 In this, religions are measured and compared according 
 to extent or quantity. At first thought, this is an ab- 
 ing to extent or quantity. At first thought, this is an ab- 
 surdity; yet like all the others it may teach its lesson. 
 Coupled with careful ethnological study, it is likely to be- 
 come of great importance. Its virtues do not lie in the way 
 of teaching the quality or superiority of religions, as the 
 argument of number is so often used. Numbers are never 
 a mark of right and goodness, nor can they tell us the 
 right way in the higher things of morals and religion. 
 Notwithstanding this, they are always interesting, and they 
 may be of inestimable use in showing how tendencies have 
 carried themselves out, how principles have affected men, 
 by what sort of principles they have been moved, and to 
 what extent; and these teachings coupled with a knowl- 
 edge of the circumstances in which the given peoples were 
 placed and of the stage of their mental development when 
 the principles became operative, may teach much concern- 
 ing the methods and laws of human progress. Moreover, 
 
THE CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. 33 
 
 maps and figures may show us the strength of principles, 
 doctrines, and tendencies whose nature we already know; 
 and if we can procure good charts and fairly well authen- 
 ticated enumerations of our own and former ages, we may 
 obtain a vastly clearer and better impression of the march 
 of these principles and doctrines through the world both 
 in reference to space and time. To see plainly the con- 
 dition of things at various periods in time, is to grasp the 
 process of the evolution and transformation of human 
 ideas. Finally, I must say that such an attempt is in accord 
 with the spirit and aim of the most advanced methods of 
 teaching in history and physical science. It falls into line 
 with those ideals which in these modern times have filled 
 huge buildings with specimens of every sort ranging 
 through the three kingdoms of nature — animal, vegetable, 
 and mineral; which equip great institutions with every 
 conceivable sort of mechanical device for illustrating the 
 laws of the physical world; which spare no expense to 
 establish bureaus of statistics and to report everything sup- 
 posed in any way to have a bearing in illustrating the con- 
 ditions and tendencies of nations; and which establish 
 signal service stations and geographical institutes in which 
 the changes in the kingdoms of the heavens above and the 
 earth beneath may be accurately observed and duly repre- 
 sented by chart and statistics. 
 
 I. Geographical Distribution. — To completely pre- 
 sent to the eye the religious condition of the world through 
 geographical relations one would need a series of "dis- 
 solving maps" representing the changes, transformations, 
 and extensions of religions from the earliest dawn of the 
 sentiment in human minds down to the present day. From 
 lack of such a desideratum we shall have to extemporize 
 what illustration is possible by means of maps of this and 
 other periods. The means are exceedingly scarce and the 
 periods chosen for illustration must consequently be few. 
 
 >^ of THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
34 THE CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. 
 
 (i) About 1880, For the geographical extension of 
 the various principal religions at the present time I will 
 refer to maps and tables in Meyer's Hand-Lexikon, II, p. 
 161 1 ; Berghaus's Phys, Atlas, Abt. VII, iii. No. 63; and 
 Droysen, Historischer Hand- At las (last map). Accord- 
 ing to these best and latest reliable authorities which I 
 am able to find, the extent of the various faiths may, with 
 some limitations and modifications, be stated as follows: 
 
 Shamanism, the highest development of the so-called 
 savage religions, has chief possession of the mind in Africa 
 between 10 degrees north and 20 degrees south of the 
 Equator, in Northern Asia, Northern North America, and 
 Central South America. 
 
 Brahmanism (or better Hinduism) is now limited to 
 the Aryans in Eastern and Southern Hindustan. 
 
 Buddhism, in variously modified forms, extends from 
 the middle of the Malacca Peninsula northward including 
 Siam, Anam, Birmah, Nepal, Thibet, Kashmire, China, 
 Mongolia, Corea, into many islands of the Pacific, espe- 
 cially Japan, Formosa, and the Philippine group, parts of 
 other East India islands, the whole of Ceylon, a numerous 
 following in Bactria, scattered representatives in Siberia, 
 and some 107,500 votaries in South-Eastern Europe. 
 
 Mohammedanism is territorially very wide spread and 
 shows evidence of great vitality and activity at the pres- 
 ent time. Its control is well-nigh complete from Arabia 
 eastward over Persia, Belloochistan, Afghanistan, East 
 and West Turkestan, the Kirgis Steppe; and westward 
 over Syria, Asia Minor, Turkey; the whole of Northern 
 Africa including Egypt, Nubia, Tripoli, Fezzan, Tunis, 
 Algeria, Morocco, the Sahara and Sudan regions ; the East 
 Coast including Somali, Galla, and Zanzibar; in the East 
 Indies, Sumatra, Java, Borneo, Celebes, and the south half 
 of Malacca ; and a considerable representation in Hindus- 
 tan and Birmah. 
 
THE CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. 35 
 
 Christianity has three great divisions: Greek (or Ori- 
 ental), Roman CathoHc, and Protestant. 
 
 Greek Christianity prevails almost entirely in Russia, 
 Roumania, Montenegro, Servia, and Greece; to a consid- 
 erable extent also in Turkey, Hungary, Caucasia, Armenia, 
 Siberia, and Abyssinia. 
 
 Roman Catholicism has yet by far the widest sway. 
 It is the all prevalent form in Austria, Italy, Spain, Portu- 
 gal, France, Bavaria, Baden, Alsace-Lorraine, Belgium; 
 numbers about two-fifths in Holland and the German Em- 
 pire ; about one-half in Switzerland ; prevails again in Mex- 
 ico, Central America, Columbia, Equador, Venezuela, 
 Guiana, Peru, Bolivia, Chili, Argentina, Uruguay, Para- 
 guay, Brazil, Hayti, the Spanish and French West Indies, 
 the African islands in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans; 
 numbers from 150 to 400 in every thousand inhabitants 
 of Great Britain and Ireland, British America, United 
 States, Australia, New Zealand, and Polynesia; and has 
 scattering missions elsewhere. 
 
 Protestantism, in some of its many varieties, is the chief 
 faith in Great Britain, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Fin- 
 land; enumerates three-fifths in Germany and Holland; 
 a little more than one-half in Switzerland, British Amer- 
 ica, Dutch and Danish West Indies ; four-fifths in British 
 West Indies, United States, and Greenland; more than 
 half in British South Africa, Transvaal and Orange River 
 Republic; nearly one-third in Madagascar and Polynesia; 
 nearly seven-tenths in Australia; and very scantily suc- 
 cessful missions in parts of Asia and Africa (the most 
 numerous not exceeding 7 converts to every 1000 inhabi- 
 tants of the region). 
 
 (2) About 1500 A, D.^ For this and other past pe- 
 riods I have not been able to find published maps. Hence 
 there was no choice but to extemporize the study. To 
 
 * See also historic maps of the period. 
 
36 THE CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. 
 
 do this roughly from historic data is not a very difficult 
 task. I have therefore made this sketch to show the re- 
 ligious condition of the world at some of the great epochs 
 in religious history. We may say in general that at the 
 year 1500 there was no Protestantism, America was un- 
 known to Europeans and belonged to the Indians, Moham- 
 medanism had reached its arm into South-Eastern Europe 
 but had not pushed far southward into Africa nor far 
 eastward into Asia, while the Orient was scarcely known, 
 though its conditions were then nearly what they are now. 
 We may sum up the distribution in general thus: 
 
 Romish Christianity occupied Europe west of Russia, 
 Turkey and Greece. 
 
 Greek Christianity covered South-western Russia, parts 
 of Turkey, Greece, Asia Minor, Northern Egypt, and 
 Abyssinia. 
 
 Mohammedanism had just been expelled from Spain, 
 and now ruled the north coast of Africa, Arabia, Persia, 
 Asia Minor, parts of Turkey, scattering peoples to the east 
 of the Caspian Sea, and to a considerable extent into North- 
 ern India. 
 
 A Modified Brahmanism took the place of the ancient 
 faith in the unsubjugated parts of Aryan India, while Bud- 
 dhism had for a couple of centuries been expelled. 
 
 Buddhism itself had spread everywhere east and north 
 into Farther India, Thibet, China, Corea, and Japan. 
 
 Of the rest of the world, — America, Africa, Australia, 
 and Polynesia, — we can only conjecture from their later 
 character and the fact that their ideas in all the fields of 
 civilization were very slow to move. 
 
 (3) About A, D, This marks another of those great 
 epochs in which transformations begin. We have a very 
 different religious world to picture to ourselves. There 
 was as yet no Christianity, no Mohammedanism, and Bud- 
 
THE CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. 2i7, 
 
 dhism had not traveled to Thibet, China, or Japan. Then 
 too, many of the old faiths were still living. 
 
 Judaism was limited to the little Roman colony of Pal- 
 estine. 
 
 Zeus and Jupiter were yet reigning, but with enfeebled 
 power in Greece and Italy. 
 
 Odin and Thor inspired and checked the fierce hordes 
 of Teutons north of the Alps, 
 
 The Celtic Druids managed the faith of the Britons. 
 
 Osiris and Isis were sinking into oblivion in Egypt. 
 
 Ahura Mazda, although temporarily weakened by as- 
 saults from the West, yet commanded the reverence of most 
 Persian hearts. 
 
 Buddhism had won the ascendency in India from Pun- 
 jab to Ceylon. 
 
 Confucianism held well-nigh unmolested sway in China. 
 
 Of the rest of the world we know nothing, except what 
 archaeology is beginning to reveal. 
 
 (4) About 400-500 B. C. Here we stand on the thresh- 
 old of one of the greatest epochs in history. Mighty 
 changes were soon to be effected in various parts of the 
 world. New tendencies of mind and morals are being 
 born, and the political face of the world is putting on new 
 aspects. The center of political power is in the Medo- 
 Persian Empire, which is now at its height. Greece too 
 has reached the acme of its glory and receives an irre- 
 coverable blow from the monarch of the East. The Roman 
 Republic (yet very small) has just started on its stormy 
 and brilliant career. The Jews have been carried into 
 captivity. Babylon and Nineveh are falling. Socrates 
 (470-399), Buddha (560-480), and Confucius (550-478) 
 are now living and have begun to turn out the past and 
 usher in the future. Surely change on a great scale was 
 taking place in men's spirits when in three such widely 
 
38 THE CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. 
 
 sundered regions as China, India, and Greece, the con- 
 ditions had become such that minds Hke these could and 
 must be developed. Two things are suggested. First, the 
 religious notions of the past were so old as to be worn 
 out. Then again, the nature conditions of the past had 
 reached a stage where higher moral ground was possible, 
 was necessary. In these great personalities we have the 
 mouth-pieces of the higher things ready to be spoken in 
 those lands. Here were crises of opportunities which 
 floated men into eternal fame. In other lands, before and 
 since, has the like occurred. In Persia, ages before this 
 the old religion died and the new was spoken by Zara- 
 thustra. In Palestine ages later the old formalistic Juda- 
 ism was to be set away into obscurity by the living prac- 
 tical moral gospel of Jesus. In Arabia, after still farther 
 ages, the old nature worship and animism was to be re- 
 placed through Mohammed by the call to Islam (Salva- 
 tion) and the worship of Allah alone. 
 
 2. Statistics, — ^The enumeration or estimate of the num- 
 ber of adherents to the various religions is a work as yet 
 beset with insuperable difficulties. In the first place, there 
 is no reliable census taken among more than half the peo- 
 ples of the globe. Of the 1540 millions estimated to be 
 living at present, only 700 millions may be considered as 
 counted fairly well. A people must have reached a very 
 high social stage of civilization before the census sense 
 becomes operative, and some of those who would be sup- 
 posed from their development otherwise to have an interest 
 in knowing their numbers, etc., seem to have none. When 
 besides the so-called savage and barbarous world, which 
 includes the natives of America, Polynesia, Australia, most 
 of Africa, and Northern Asia, is added the indifference of 
 many of the civilized nations, the difficulty begins to show 
 its greatness. As an illustration or two of the latter, I 
 might remark that the population of Constantinople is 
 
THE CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. 39 
 
 not known, and the census of Cuba has never been carefully 
 taken. 
 
 Then as to the question of making estimates, there are 
 double and triple uncertainties. First, in many of these 
 uncounted regions the population is so changeable from 
 time to time as to defy even respectable estimates. The 
 nomadic and emigrating tendencies of many peoples are 
 things hard to take into consideration. They are in this 
 way liable to be counted twice or not to be counted at all. 
 This is further increased by the wide-spread practice of 
 kidnapping slaves and wives. Other factors, are the great 
 variations of populations produced by unequal birth rates. 
 Professor Ratzel of Leipsic cites the case of a single small 
 village in Bavaria of which he examined the baptismal 
 records for a period covering some 250 years, and found 
 variations in the number of births from 170 to 38 for dif- 
 ferent decades with an almost invariable village popula- 
 tion. Many examinations of this kind go to show that 
 increase of populations, among other things, depends much 
 on the outlook of the people. Besides this to-a-large- 
 extent-unconsciously sterile or prolific tendency, there are 
 the facts of infanticide and suicide, both of which prevail 
 at times to an unbelievable extent among some nations. 
 Again, there are various races, which through contact 
 with higher civilizations and from other causes, are in a 
 state of constant decline in numbers. Some have already 
 died out entirely (Tasmanians, etc.) ; others are fast de- 
 creasing (Indians, Maori, etc.). And lastly, three of the 
 mightiest factors having to do with this uncertainty and 
 variation in the world's population, are famine, pestilence, 
 and war. In some lands and at some times the proportion 
 is very greatly disturbed by these. Happer, an English 
 writer on the Chinese, tells of 63,000,000 having perished 
 by hunger since 1812. And some one (Meadows I think) 
 says that 30,000,000 Chinese perished in a single rebellion. 
 
40 THE CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. 
 
 In India the populations of certain regions are occasionally 
 terribly reduced by either famine or cholera. War not 
 infrequently decimates the male population and seriously 
 disturbs the naturally balanced numerical relations of the 
 sexes. These factors put together go to show that there 
 might be such a science as the pathology of population. 
 
 When to all these difficulties in the formation of esti- 
 mates of the numbers living either now or in the past, is 
 added the variations in the actual estimates made by trav- 
 elers and investigators, the case begins to look like a hope- 
 less one. How great this confusion may threaten to be, 
 may be better appreciated if I state, that the population of 
 China has during recent years been variously calculated 
 from 150 to 450 millions. The most reliable figures, how- 
 ever, range between 370 and 420 millions, the latter being 
 the sum given by Tseng, a Chinese statistician. ( In A. D. 
 57 China had 21 millions.) 
 
 But to come closer to the question of calculating the 
 votaries of the different faiths of the world, it must be 
 observed that the problem would be far from solved even 
 if we could count the peoples of the various lands, though 
 enumeration on the best approximation of these is the only 
 result yet or perhaps ever possible. Statistics of religion 
 in general can do no more than collect the aggregates of 
 population in various lands and divide the sums among 
 the faiths supposed to predominate in those various re- 
 gions. But this is almost the loosest sort of generaliza- 
 tion, and has no solider basis than the assumption that 
 peoples living under the same general environment and in 
 the regions where certain doctrines have been extensively 
 preached, must have the same religious outlook. The as- 
 sumption has some truth on its side. Such peoples must 
 necessarily have more in common and possess a greater 
 similarity of theory and practice than those who are widely 
 separated and who are surrounded by very different cir- 
 
THE CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. 4I 
 
 cumstances of life. Yet this assumption and method, with- 
 out qualification, leave no room for the play of individual- 
 ity. Though the intelligent thinking Chinaman is far nearer 
 the religious point of view of Buddhism than he is of 
 Protestant Christianity, and though the scientifically in- 
 clined European or American is probably more in sympathy 
 with the latter than he is with the former, yet it is straining 
 the category of either name to class such men with the 
 mass of their countrymen who subscribe to these confes- 
 sions and their ordinances. And this class of non-con- 
 formists in all civilized countries, though never conspicuous 
 or exactly ascertainable, must be somewhat numerous, the 
 more so in proportion to the liberty and intelligence of the 
 people. Hence when it is stated that the number of Chris- 
 tians or Buddhists is so and so, we perceive the necessity of 
 discounting the estimate to a considerable extent from this 
 reason alone. I should remark in passing, that the in- 
 accuracy of religious statistics in failing to represent the 
 individualism and independence of many, may be and is in 
 part remedied in what we term sectarian statistics. Yet 
 this can never appear in those general estimates of the 
 religions of the world, and consequently our cautions re- 
 main in full force. We must further make the perhaps 
 yet greater deduction of that multitude of indifferent per- 
 sons to be found everywhere. Almost every neighborhood 
 numbers its scores who give little or no attention to the 
 question of religion in any of the usual senses. These two 
 classes in the aggregate seriously diminish the accuracy 
 of our customary estimates. Nevertheless we must make 
 them as best we can, and learn from them what we may. 
 The most remarkable interest in the scientific study of 
 religions and of religion was manifest in the period between 
 the later 70's and the early 90's of the nineteenth century. 
 The labors accomplished by Max Miiller, Rhys Davids, 
 Tiele, Sayce, Bournouf, Kuenen, Whitney, Spencer, Pflei- 
 
42 
 
 THE CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. 
 
 derer, Brinton, Reville, Johnson, Carus, and their many co- 
 workers, began another epoch in religious history. The 
 inftuence of this work brought about the World's Congress 
 of Religions at Chicago in 1893; ^^^ its continuation in a 
 hundred ways is steadily modifying the religious outlook, 
 not only of Christendom but of the peoples who have for 
 centuries held to the other historic faiths. 
 
 ( I ) T, W, Rhys Davids, the eminent English Oriental 
 scholar and authority on Buddhism, gives the population 
 of the world and of the various religions as follows. (See 
 his Buddhism J etc.) 
 
 RELIGIONS 
 
 NUMBERS 
 
 Jews 
 
 Mohammedans . 
 
 
 
 7,000,000 
 155,000,000 
 
 75,000,000 1 
 152,000,000 1 327,000,000 
 
 100,000,000 J 
 
 160,000,000 
 
 500,000,000 
 
 150,000 
 
 1,200,000 
 
 100,000,000 
 
 Greek Christian 
 
 
 Roman Catholic Christian 
 
 Protestant Christian 
 
 Brahmanism . . . 
 Buddhism 
 
 
 
 Parsees 
 
 Sikhs 
 
 Heathen 
 
 
 
 
 
 1,250,350,000 
 
 (2) The Justus Perthes Geographische Anstalt of Go- 
 tha, one of the highest statistical authorities in the world, 
 
 RELIGIONS 
 
 MILLIONS 
 
 PERCENT 
 
 Christians 
 
 200 
 
 150 
 
 87 
 
 8 
 
 445 
 
 170 
 
 7 
 852 
 
 30.2 
 13.6 
 10 2 
 
 Catholics 
 
 Protestants 
 
 Greek Orthodox 
 
 5-9 
 0.5 
 
 11.5 
 0.5 
 
 57.8 
 
 Others 
 
 Mohammedans 
 
 Israelites 
 
 Heathen 
 
 
 1474 
 
 100. 
 
THE CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. 
 
 43 
 
 gives the preceding figures. ( See Taschen- Atlas, 22. Aufl. 
 von Hermann Habenicht. Mit geogr.-stat. Notizen [by 
 H. Wichmann], 1886.) 
 
 In this connection I will give for future reference the 
 same authority's figures on the numbers of the principal 
 races of the world. 
 
 RACES 
 
 MILLION 
 
 PER CENT 
 
 African and Semites 
 
 176 
 
 33 
 
 10 
 
 40 
 
 586 
 
 631 
 
 II. 9 
 2.2 
 
 Oceanic 
 
 American 
 
 0.7 
 
 Dravidian 
 
 2.7 
 
 Mongolian . 
 
 39.7 
 42.8 
 
 Indo-Eurooean 
 
 
 
 1476 
 
 100. 
 
 (3) From G, Droysen's Hist orischer Hand- Atlas, 1886, 
 a most excellent outline work, I take the following esti- 
 mates (p. 92). 
 
 RELIGIONS 
 
 Christians 
 
 Mohammedans . .. 
 
 Buddhists 
 
 Brahmanists 
 
 Heathen 
 
 NUMBERS 
 
 442,351,000 
 186,356,000 
 447,969,780 
 187,947450 
 92,182,340 
 
 1,356,806,570 
 
 (4) Meyers Hand-Lexikon (3. Aufl., 1885) gives a 
 careful statistical analysis of the general religious con- 
 dition of the world drawn from the most recent enumera- 
 tions and estimates. In the following summary I have 
 divided the 687 millions set down there as the "worshipers 
 of Brahma and Buddha'' into four groups, viz., Hinduism, 
 Parseeism, Sikhism, and Buddhism, leaving the total the 
 same, while putting for the three latter the numbers given 
 by Rhys Davids (II, p. 1611). 
 
44 
 
 THE CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. 
 
 KELIGIONS 
 
 MILLIONS 
 
 Protestant Christianity 
 
 131 
 
 210 
 
 92 
 
 6"/«,' 
 
 196 
 
 i85"Ao 
 
 1V30 
 500 
 i28"Ao 
 
 
 Roman Catholic Christianity 
 
 [ 433 
 
 Greek Christianity 
 
 Judaism 
 
 Mohammedanism 
 
 Hinduism 
 
 
 Parseeism 
 
 - 1018*/^ 
 
 Sikhism 
 
 Buddhism 
 
 
 Others 
 
 
 
 
 
 1451%. 
 
 (5) A later estimate (culled from various sources, but 
 not so carefully discriminated) is found in a Beilage to the 
 Allgemeine Zeitung for January, 1901. Some of the re- 
 sults of this estimate are given in Appleton's American 
 (Annual) Cyclopedia, 3d Ser., Vol. VI, (for 1901) 
 
 RELIGIONS. ADHERENTS. 
 
 Christians 501,600,000 
 
 Roman Catholics 240,000,000 
 
 Protestants 163,300,000 
 
 Greek Catholics 98,300,000 
 
 Mohammedans . 167,200,000 
 
 Jews 7,100,000 
 
 Pagans (largely Buddhist and Brahmin) 667,800,000 
 
 Heathen ( Savage) 95,400,000 
 
 1,439,100,000 
 
 The same authority gives the world's population as 
 1,544,509,000. 
 
 The figures for the adherents of Roman Catholicism 
 are given by Mulhall in 1898 as 200,450,000. 
 
 The Jewish Year Book for 1902 gives the total number 
 of Jews in the world as 10,378,530. 
 
 The official estimate of the Turkish government gives 
 the total number of Mohammedans in the world as 176- 
 
THE CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. 45 
 
 000,000 for about the year 1900; while Mr. Mann in the 
 North American Review, 1900, increases the sum to 200- 
 
 313,845. 
 
 This result I have used in another way to make an 
 object lesson. If a surface be laid out with 38%© units on 
 each side, it will contain i45^%o square units. By using 
 different colors and coloring as many squares as each 
 religion has millions of adherents, their comparative fol- 
 lowings may be strikingly perceived at a glance. 
 
 C. CLASSIFICATIONS BASED ON PHILOSOPHIES OF RELIGION. 
 
 SUBJECTIVE. 
 
 I. Professor PHeiderer of Berlin, in a work entitled: 
 Die Religion, ihr Wesen und ihre Geschichte (2 Bande, 
 1869), developed a division of which he said: "Wir hoffen, 
 dass diese Einleitung der Religionen liberhaupt und der 
 heidnischen insbesondere sich durch die Verbindung ge- 
 schichtlicher Treue mit begrifflicher Scharfe von selbst 
 empfehlen, und dass sie auch vor der strengsten Kritik 
 jener Empiriker, welche gegen jedwede begriffliche Sche- 
 matisirung stets misstrauisch sind, standhalten werde.'' 
 (II, p. 60.) He bases it on an attempted psychological 
 analysis of the fundamental principles of religion, the 
 ground basis of piety. Here is to be sought the one un- 
 derived reality to which all else is accidental. The reason 
 that previous divisions have proved untenable is, according 
 to Pfleiderer's mind, that they have been based on secon- 
 dary phenomena instead of being founded in the essence 
 of religion itself. In such divisions there are always cer- 
 tain points which will not stand the pressure of the facts. 
 But he says : "Die I.eichtigkeit hingegen, mit welcher hier 
 der geschichtliche Stoff sich subsumirt unter den begriff- 
 lichen Schematismus, ist ein Beweis fur die Richtigkeit 
 des Eintheilungsprinzips, also schliesslich noch ein Beweis 
 fiir die richtige Fassung des Begriffs der Religion, wel- 
 
46 THE CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. 
 
 chem das Eintheilungsprinzip entnommen wurde." Here 
 is confidence enough. It should indeed be an excellent 
 theory to warrant so much. We will look at it and hear its 
 later fate. (See Chart.) 
 
 In the first place, its geneology must be observed. It 
 will be remembered from the discussion upon the psycho- 
 logical origin of the religious nature,* that Schleiermacher 
 founded it in feeling and made its essence to consist of a 
 sense of absolute dependence, and that Hegel laid its basis 
 wholly in thought arid found its essence to be sense of free- 
 dom, the more unlimited and the higher it rose the more 
 religious. Both theories were paraded to excess by their 
 respective followers, and received the hardest criticism from 
 the other side and from outsiders. Indeed, one may almost 
 say that the history of these views constitutes the history 
 of religious philosophical discussion during the last fifty 
 to seventy-five years, especially in Germany. It became 
 more and more manifest (except to the most blinded parti- 
 sans) that neither view was able to hold the ground. A 
 new theory or a compromise was the only resort. The 
 former was out of the question on any of the old bases. 
 Kant had preempted the will, Schleiermacher the feeling, 
 and Hegel the intellect, each severally as the ground for 
 his structure. There was no other region known, and there 
 happened to be no passion for discovery at that time. In 
 this embarrassment Professor Pfleiderer (then at Tii- 
 bingen) came forward with a theory compromising be- 
 tween the views of Schleiermacher and Hegel. He admits 
 the ground claims of both, but will have none of the ex- 
 clusiveness of either. Neither is complete alone, nor are 
 they sufficient by adding them together in a mere com- 
 promise. They must be melted together, must be blended 
 into a perfect unity, a unity of such a peculiar type that 
 neither looses its essential character, while each mutually 
 
 * See How Religion arises — A Psychological Study, by Duren J. H. Ward 
 
THE CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. 
 
 47 
 
 admits the exercise of the other to the fullest extent ; indeed, 
 each in this fullest exercise of the other comes to get in 
 
 PFLEIDERER'S PHILOSOPHICAL CLASSIFICATION 
 OF RELIGION. 
 
 ^ A , 
 
 I 
 
 ,The two elements of religion. 
 
 o 5: 
 
 W td 
 g 2 
 
 Extreme Partiality. 
 (One or the other moment holds almost entire con- 
 trol.) 
 
 Unequal Recognition. 
 (The two moments tending toward equilibrium.) 
 
 W 
 
 > 
 
 § 
 
 < 
 
 r ^ 
 
 2 
 
 
 a 
 
 oq* 
 
 > 
 2 
 
 g 
 
 133 O 
 o » 
 
 > 2 
 
 O 
 
 2. c 
 
 i 3 
 
 » 5 
 
 (A 
 
 Balancing. 
 (Each moment having its relative claim admitted.) 
 
 Christianity. 
 Blending. 
 (Both absolutely realized, each through the other.) 
 
 this way, and in this way only, its own fullest play and 
 activity. This is truly a great insight. Such a work were 
 
48 THE CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. 
 
 as really a discovery as the development of the onesided 
 views which it wrought into a higher view. 
 
 He lays out the ground somewhat as follows: "Das 
 Wesen des frommen Selbstbewusstseins an und fiir sich" 
 is the only factor conceivable for a sharp or exact division. 
 In this he finds two constituting moments: freedom and 
 dependence. In and for themselves each claims full and 
 unlimited sway. Hence arises conflict and struggle be- 
 tween them. The various relations growing out of these 
 two moments of religious life form a comprehensible and 
 sharply fixed basis of division. If in a religion one is pre- 
 dominant we see its essential characteristic, and so if the 
 other; but if we see them standing in an equilibrium of 
 validity, we recognize the approach to the perfect. Their 
 unequal coexistence will be found to be the common char- 
 acteristic of the heathen religions, while their greater bal- 
 ance is the chief mark of the monotheisms. These mono- 
 theisms again are divisible on the ground as to whether 
 the two elements only relatively have their rights recog- 
 nized, or w^hether this mutually recognized right becomes 
 a completely blended realization. Christianity represents 
 the latter, Judaism and Islam the former. In Christianity 
 is the fullest freedom reached only when the fullest de- 
 pendence is realized. (See 2 Cor. iii. 17, also Luke ix. 24.) 
 Judaism and Mohammedanism hold to both of these ele- 
 ments, but in such a way as to resemble two poles which 
 though inseparable yet stand over against each other in op- 
 position. In these religions man feels himself free and also 
 dependent, but the two are not so blended that he finds his 
 freedom in his dependence, and at the same time the satis- 
 faction of his own will in the service of God. In them 
 the one moment leaves ofif when and where the other be- 
 gins. 
 
 Not so in Heathenism. Sometimes an overpowering 
 sense of dependence, sometimes an unlimited notion of free- 
 
THE CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. 49 
 
 dom are the characterizing elements. Never are both rec- 
 ognized, never do they stand in equipoise, never do they 
 blend in pious experience. Both being indestructible ele- 
 ments, neither is ever wholly lost, and even in greatest 
 subjection, the unrecognized factor reacts with what weak 
 powers it has left. Yet when vigorous reaction comes, it 
 too is just as onesided. In the heathen mind these elements 
 are so unbalanced that they do not stand as in Judaism 
 merely out of and beside each other, but stand in a relation 
 of opposition, of againstness, or of contradiction to each 
 other. In this opposed way each is false from the other's 
 point of view. One of the two chief tendencies will be 
 taken by the religious mind on the stage of pure nature. 
 Either man gives himself up entirely to his dependent 
 sense, regards himself as on all sides determined and at 
 the disposal of the Divine All-life, in which case the nat- 
 ural will seeks by the satisfaction of the natural im- 
 pulses to compensate itself all the more because of this 
 resignation. This accounts for the mixture of resigned 
 self-sacrifice (asceticism) and gross sensuality in the pan- 
 theistic nature religions. On the other hand, man realizes 
 his dependence little, an overflowing fulness of life gives 
 an overpowering feeling of freedom from the control of 
 the finite and limited gods of nature. He is, to be sure, 
 in a measure dependent on them, since he prays for their 
 help ; but at the same time he thinks to compel them into 
 his service through the craft or force of his magic and 
 divine exorcisms. The real feeling of dependence now 
 reacts in the fear of an unconditioned might standing yet 
 higher than the gods, a blind necessity or fate. This is 
 everywhere at the back of polytheism, hard and oppressive 
 in proportion as the gods are believed to be limited. In 
 the stage of development which precedes what we term 
 the beginning of civilization, this contrast of freedom and 
 dependence is at its strongest. With the entrance of a 
 
^ THE CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. 
 
 higher social condition in the taking on of family and civic 
 relations this sharp division is toned down somewhat. The 
 individual begins, by the suggestions and incentives which 
 these impose upon him, to recognize himself as belonging 
 to a law-ordered whole. The sensuous will of man is re- 
 strained by custom and law till he feels his dependence on 
 society, but at the same time he is lifted into a higher free- 
 dom in that to his previously selfish interest there is given 
 now the greater content of a more universal aim, or inter- 
 est. This filling out of the sense of freedom with moral 
 content and the drawing of the sense of dependence toward 
 moral powers (deities) gradually destroys the conflict be- 
 tween them. The Greeks or Romans who had received 
 this moral and civic culture no longer feared that blind 
 fate above the gods; but fate became to them gradually 
 more and more the rational will of a Zeus who was the 
 bearer of the natural world-order, or of a Jupiter Capito- 
 linus who was the supporter of the Roman idea of the 
 State. On the other hand, the cultured Chinaman, who 
 before had been borne down by a stupid resignation to his 
 complete dependence on the irrational life of nature, felt 
 this no longer in the former way ; but as the notion of his 
 State-relations took hold on his life, his dependence rec- 
 ognized itself as leaning on an essentially rational whole. 
 In both examples, however, the moral and civic relations 
 are imperfect, their powers of influence are only relatively 
 universal, hence the will in dependence on them does not 
 arrive to a perfect freedom, i. e., the two do not become 
 inwardly fully reconciled to each other. A third stage to 
 be noticed in the cultivated nature religion, he calls the 
 supernatural. This is where the deified powers are no 
 longer the natural powers merely. A fundamental breach 
 is made with nature, yet not to the extent that a positive 
 supernatural world is attained, nor to the denial of all the 
 old nature powers. There is spirit worship of the higher 
 
THE CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. 5I 
 
 sort along with many elements of nature-religion. Of 
 this sort are Brahmanism and Buddhism on the one side, 
 and Zarathustrianism on the other. Both have escaped 
 the limits of the finite, in nature as well as the State, and 
 are consequently to be distinguished from the previous 
 stages. They form indeed a sort of pre-stage to a mono- 
 theistic religion. There is yet between them a contrasted 
 onesidedness : since in the Indian religions the false de- 
 pendence on the finite is broken by the release from sen- 
 suous self-torture (in Buddhism also of mental) without 
 attaining to a positive freedom in the infinite ; while in the 
 Persian, though the freedom is placed as the absolute aim 
 of divine things, yet it never reaches to the abolition of a 
 dependence on the ungodly. The remnants of a former 
 naturalism yet remain in its strong dualism. 
 
 Complete and invulnerable as the author's enthusiasm 
 led him to boast his theory and classification to be, it was 
 not complete enough to win his own assent a few years 
 later. He has re-written the whole topic a couple of times 
 since, and has finally himself abandoned the theory which 
 was to have resisted the strongest criticism of opposing 
 schools through its "combination of historical fidelity and 
 exactness of comprehension.'' In his more recent work, 
 Religionsphilosophie auf geschichtlicher Grundlage, he pro- 
 poses another theory and a different basis of division. 
 According to the view being here developed, he is as much 
 at fault for abandoning this division as he was at first for 
 making it and supposing it to be final. One would have to 
 abandon each latest view on the same ground and in the 
 same way, if he lived and remained as fertile and progres- 
 sive minded as heretofore. The difficulty lies not so much 
 in the great faultiness of the classification principle, but 
 in supposing it could do the work of other classifica- 
 
52 THE CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. 
 
 tions. For its legitimate purposes it is most excellent. 
 One cannot look upon it carefully without being impressed 
 with the amount of truth that it teaches. Like the other 
 attempts which we have looked at, it has its importance. 
 It is no fault of a theory that it is misused, or that un- 
 reasonable confidence is placed in it or immodest claims 
 made for it. Our theories would often serve us better 
 than they do, if we could estimate them for what they 
 are : not finalities, but theories, working hypotheses, points 
 of view, means of insight, etc. It is a very poor one indeed 
 that is not of some service; it is a most excellent one 
 indeed that does not soon run us into errors, extravagances, 
 and dangers, if we push its application. 
 
 The way in which Professor Pfleiderer applied this 
 theory to the various religions would seem to indicate, 
 whether he intended it or not, that he regarded religion 
 as a projected morality. Observe especially the remarks 
 about the cultured Greek, Roman, and Chinaman. To do 
 this would be to limit it in actual fact to morality, when 
 we undeceive ourselves as to the source of the projected 
 objects of worship and of our relationships. Our only 
 excuse for longer letting our moral conceptions take such 
 objectified form would be, that it added a greater glow 
 of enthusiasm and romance to our actual moral relations 
 to think them in such a manner, or that it were best for 
 the common folk to have this sort of supernatural outlook. 
 
 Again the chief or pivotal terms of the division, free- 
 dom and dependence, are not used throughout in the same 
 sense, as will be seen by a thoughtful examination. At 
 the start they are the fundamental elements of all pious 
 feeling, but later it would seem that one or the other had, 
 in his mind (especially the sense of freedom), become the 
 all-absorbing, all-worthy element. On this, witness his 
 discrimination regarding the Persian religion, where the 
 
THE CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. 
 
 m 
 
 sense of dependence is indicated as though belonging to the 
 character of mind which debases itself before demons. 
 
 The position in the plan to which he assigns both Bud- 
 dhism and Islam are entirely wrong in my opinion. The 
 prominent characteristics of the former place it under free- 
 dom, those of the latter assign it to the side of dependence. 
 
 Another remark should be passed, viz., that we would 
 be led by this theory to place too high an estimate on aver- 
 age Christianity; since, except in the very highest cases, 
 has there neither in Christianity, Judaism, or Moham- 
 medanism ever been more than a practical adjustment or 
 compromise between these two fundamental elements. Such 
 a consummation were devoutly to be wished, and such a 
 classification or analysis would have inestimable value if 
 its calling attention to these relations aided in any way so 
 practical an end. One can scarcely doubt that here is an 
 attempted expression of one of the deepest features and 
 relations of the religious life, and though its full and satis- 
 factory explanation may yet be unaccomplished, we become 
 convinced that it has in it a profound reality. 
 
 D. CLASSIFICATIONS BASED ON RACIAL RELATIONSHIP. 
 GENEALOGICAL. 
 
 I. According to Linguistic AiHnity, 
 
 Prof. Max Miiller (Introd. to the Science of Religion, 
 p. 143 ff.) says: "The only scientific and truly genetic 
 classification of religions is the same as the classification 
 of languages. Particularly in the early history of the 
 human intellect, there exists the most intimate relationship 
 between language, religion, and nationality." The out- 
 ward appearance, tangibility, or framework of religion in 
 early times, that by which it was communicable from heart 
 to heart, centered around a few words and expressions 
 pertaining to deity, sacrifice, altar, prayer, possibly body, 
 
54 THE CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. 
 
 soul, virtue, sin. "Early religion and early language 
 are most intimately connected, religion depending entirely 
 for its outward expression on the more or less adequate 
 resources of language.'' To understand this clearly, is 
 to arrive at a basis for the most useful classification of 
 religions. Whatever genetic relationships exist between 
 languages "ought to hold together the religions of the 
 world, at least the most ancient religions." 
 
 In Asia, with its most important peninsula Europe, we 
 have three families of languages: Turanian, Semitic, and 
 Aryan. In each of these (especially the first two) the 
 growth of language became arrested, i. e., ceased to be 
 natural, and through religious and political influences be- 
 came permanent and solidified. With this petrifaction 
 of language into historical speech went on a like petri- 
 faction of religion into the three great independent settle- 
 ments. The character of the latter is in great measure 
 determined by that of the former, or at least is found to be 
 of similar analogy. 
 
 Of Turanian languages, Chinese is the oldest repre- 
 sentative. If we look into its early forms we get light 
 on this early family of religions. Accompanying the prosy 
 speech of China we find an ancient colorless and unpoetical 
 religion, one which might, after the manner of the lan- 
 guage, also be called monosyllabic. Its deities are a host 
 of independent spirits, having in the worshiper's mind 
 little mutual interrelationship. They are evidently per- 
 sonifications of the heavens, sun, storms, mountains, rivers, 
 etc. Beside these stands the worship of ancestral spirits 
 and those of the more recently departed who are believed to 
 be lookers-on of human affairs and to be exercising their 
 powers for good or evil. This old form of faith, a double 
 worship of human and natural spirits, lives on even yet 
 among the lower ranks, though at least since the time of 
 
THE CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. 55: 
 
 Confucius it has been superseded in the upper stratum of 
 intelligence. 
 
 Among Semitic races the names of deities clearly mark 
 off their religions as characteristic, though indeed in lan- 
 guage, literature, and general civilization they are so dif- 
 ferent from each other and from themselves at different 
 times. Yet running through the polytheisms of Babylon, 
 Phoenicia, and Carthage, as well as the monotheisms of 
 Jews, Christians, and Mohammedans, there runs the same 
 great dominant characteristic notion of God in History, 
 God mingling in and ruling over the affairs of men as 
 individuals, races, and nations, as contrasted with the 
 characteristic of God in nature. The tendency of the 
 peoples has been to lay the stress of life on social organi- 
 zation and moral relationships ; hence as we might expect, 
 Semitic deities in general bear names expressive of moral 
 qualities : the Strong, the Exalted, the Lord, the King, etc. 
 Generally, too, the anthropomorphism is not strong nor 
 the dramatic activity prominent. Hence their tendency 
 to monotheism, aided by the external circumstance of mo- 
 notonous desert life. 
 
 And thirdly the Aryans, though now scattered by ex- 
 tended enterprise to all parts of the globe, are a family 
 easily recognized by the roots of their language. Through 
 the names of their gods also they show an original oneness 
 of religion. Professor Muller denies the oft-repeated re- 
 mark that their worship may be characterized as a wor- 
 ship of nature, and says, "if it had to be characterized by 
 one word, I should venture to call it a worship of God in 
 Nature, of God as appearing behind the gorgeous veil of 
 Nature, rather than as hidden behind the veil of the sanc- 
 tuary of the human heart. The gods of the Aryans assume 
 an individuality so strongly marked and permanent, that 
 with the Aryans a transition to monotheism required a 
 
56 THE CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. 
 
 powerful struggle, and seldom took effect without icono- 
 clastic revolutions or philosophical despair." 
 
 Here are three types of religion accompanying three 
 types of language and race, the formation and settlement 
 of which into these special features have and will for all 
 future time determine the fate of the whole human race. 
 The three unities which at some remote past epoch these 
 peoples formed, have in course of time through increase 
 of numbers and other circumstances disintegrated into 
 what might seem a chaos of peoples, tongues, and relig- 
 ions. Yet it was not a chaos, for out of this seemingly 
 inextricable confusion of dialects and variety of races our 
 modern science has been able to assert the original unity 
 and restore the principal former characteristics. (As yet 
 the case with regard to the Turanians is somewhat doubt- 
 ful.) 
 
 Professor Muller makes reference to an African and an 
 American family of races, languages, and religions which 
 long ago broke up into various divisions without devel- 
 oping literature or settled speech, and hence their relation- 
 ships-are a vastly more difficult study. At the time in which 
 he was speaking there was little to be gained from them 
 in the way of support for his general view. 
 
 * * * 
 
 The case of Aryan unity he develops at some length 
 giving substantially the same reasons that I have done in 
 another place relying principally on the authority of Pictet. 
 (See "The Primeval Aryans, etc.") He cites the names 
 of their principal deities, calls attention to their terms 
 expressive of the most essential elements of religion, as 
 prayer, sacrifice, altar, spirit, law, faith, etc. He also 
 mentions such cases as the terms for house, town, king, 
 etc. 
 
THE CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. 57 
 
 The comparison of the Semitic family of languages is 
 carried out with more completeness. Here the relation is 
 closer, the sub-races have never been so scattered, their 
 intercourse has been more frequent, and hence their lin- 
 guistic and religious relationships are more manifest. So 
 manifest indeed is the former, that no Semitic scholar has 
 ever thought it to be worth his while to carry out such a 
 comparative study of their likenesses as Pictet and others 
 have done within the Aryan family. Nor has there ever 
 been wrought out a comparative grammar of the Semitic 
 languages, like that of Bopp's, e. g., on the Aryan. By 
 the same process of comparison which has been so success- 
 fully carried on in the Aryan group could we here still 
 easier reconstruct the primeval Semitic civilization and 
 religion. ( A noble work yet to be executed by some earnest 
 progressive-minded Semitic scholar who might tell us how 
 this race lived and what they believed and thought before 
 Hebrew was Hebrew, and before there was any Syriac, 
 Aramaic, Arabic, Ethiopic, Phoenician, or Babylonian 
 speeches.) 
 
 The evidence of the pre-historic oneness of the Semites 
 drawn from the names of the deities is unusually strong. 
 This similarity of appellation and its meaning points to 
 the fact that there must have been a time when they as 
 well as the Aryans decided as one people upon certain 
 names for their gods, and nothing is more evident than 
 the fact that this period preceded the special development 
 into the separate languages and individual religions. The 
 root El (meaning Strong) tells a great history with regard 
 to this race. In Babylonian inscriptions we find it in Ilu 
 (God), as well as in Bab-il (the gate or temple of II). 
 Among the Hebrews we have it in Beth-el (house of God), 
 and in ha-El, preceded by the article (the Strong, the 
 God, i. e., Jehovah). The Phoenicians in Byblus (Jebel) 
 worshiped El, the son of Heaven and earth. His grand- 
 
58 THE CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. 
 
 father Elium, the most high God, was killed by wild ani- 
 mals, and his father dethroned, and finally slain by him- 
 self. Philo identifies this god El with the Greek Kronos, 
 and represents him as the presiding deity of the planet 
 Saturn. This same El is the presiding deity of this planet 
 according to Diodorus Siculus. And the Himyritic in- 
 scriptions in Southern Arabia also contain it. The Hebrew 
 Eloah (plural Elohini) is the same word as the Arabic 
 Ildh (God), which without the article means god in gen- 
 eral, and with the article, Al-ildh or Allah, it is the God 
 of the Koran. Again it appears in the Arabic in the fem- 
 inine Alldt to whom a famous temple at Taif was dedicated ; 
 and this AUat of the Koran (whose temple was destroyed 
 by Mohammed's command) is doubtless the one mentioned 
 by Herodotus (iii, 8). 
 
 The word Baal or Bel is another name of deity common 
 to most of the Semitic peoples. Assyrians, Babylonians, 
 Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Moabites, Philistines, and 
 Jews all worshiped this deity as a great or as the supreme 
 God. This points to their earlier unity as a race and to 
 his greatness as a god. Later through local worship we 
 hear of many Baals (Baalim collectively and with special 
 names singly): Baal-tsur (of Tyre), Baal-tsidon (of Si- 
 don), Baal-tars (of Tarsus), Baal-berith (of Shechem, 
 god of treaties, Judg. viii. 33; ix. 4), Baal-zehuh (of the 
 Philistines at Ekron, 2 Kings i. 2, 3, 16), Baal-peor (of 
 the Moabites and Jews, Numb, xxv), and Baal-Shdmayim 
 (on Phoenician coins). The last named is the Beelsamen 
 which Philo speaks of as the Phoenician sun-god, thus: 
 "When the heat became oppressive the ancient races of 
 Phoenicia lifted their hands heavenward to the sun. For 
 him they considered the only God, the lord of heaven, cal- 
 ling him Beelsamen, which with the Phoenicians is lord 
 of heaven, and with the Greeks Zeus." 
 
 The Ashtoreth mentioned in the Old Testament and 
 
THE CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. 59^ 
 
 worshiped by the Jews (i Kings xi. 5; Judg. iii. 12), the 
 Ishtar of the Babylonians mentioned in inscriptions and in 
 the famous epic (Geo. Smith, Chaldean Account of Gen- 
 esis), the Ashtar of the Moabite stone, and the Astarte 
 of the Syrians, are one and the same goddess. Traces of 
 this goddess and her consort are also found in the Himya- 
 ritic kingdom, as in Athtar. 
 
 The Hebrew Melech; the Moloch of Carthage, Crete, 
 Rhodes, and the valley of Hinnom ; the Milcom of the Am- 
 monites (who had a sanctuary in Mt. Olivet) ; and the 
 Adrammelech and Anammelech of the Sepharvites (to 
 whom, according to 2 Kings xvii. 31, they burned their 
 children in sacrifice), are local varieties of an early Sem- 
 itic deity. 
 
 The Old Testament Adondi (my lord) applied only 
 to Jehovah, was in Phoenicia the very name of the Supreme 
 Deity. This personage, as is well known, was adopted 
 into the Greek mythology, and became transformed into 
 the beautiful young Adonis, loved by Aphrodite, and killed 
 by the wild boar of Ares. 
 
 Yet other names are mentioned besides these. Alto- 
 gether the case is an unusually strong one from this class 
 of words alone, that the Semitic religions belonged to- 
 gether geneologically as a class on the same basis that 
 their language in other ways relate them as peoples of 
 the same race. The period when they were one people 
 with one language and one religion far antedates historic 
 times, yet, as in the case of the Aryans, it is none the less 
 certain; and should the work be undertaken by a scholar 
 competent for the task, I doubt not that a much better 
 reconstruction of primeval Semitic civilization and religion 
 might be effected than has been done in the former case. 
 
 On the Turanian ground the way is less sure. The 
 subject is exceedingly difficult, because it has been com- 
 paratively little investigated. The languages of the Chi- 
 
60 THE CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. 
 
 nese, Mandshus, Northern Mongolian, Tartars, Finns, etc. 
 have as yet been very little a subject of scientific study. 
 However, with such evidence as may be obtained, the mat- 
 ter of proving a linguistic relationship as a basis for a 
 relationship of religions is attempted. Miiller's method 
 of proof is faulty here in that he calls to his aid the simi- 
 larity in the religions which he would, as proposed at first, 
 prove by linguistic relations alone. Nevertheless the case 
 is not so badly blemished as to make the investigation 
 worthless, since they do actually assist each other much. 
 In the cases of the Aryans and Semites we knew more of 
 their languages at start than we did of their religions, 
 and hence our knowledge of the former very naturally 
 proved a great help toward a better understanding of the 
 latter besides showing their geneological connections. But 
 with the Turanians, we are better acquainted at the outset 
 with their religious notions than with the family relation- 
 ship of their tongues. Hence very naturally the racial 
 unity which the similarity of their religions points to is 
 aided but not absolutely proved by the investigation of the 
 leading religious terms. In the background of all Tura- 
 nian religions are certain fundamental ideas which have 
 a closer resemblance even at first glance than any of these 
 have with other faiths. With all of them there goes a 
 nature worship of a sort peculiar to the group. A few 
 comparisons and terms will show what basis there is for 
 the attempt. 
 
 In the Shu-king (one of the most ancient sacred books 
 of China) heaven and earth are the father and mother of 
 all things. In the ancient poetry. Heaven alone is both 
 father and mother. The heaven-spirit is called Tien, and 
 is ever used as the name of the supreme deity, i. e., he is 
 the Chinese Jupiter or Allah. The word means the Great 
 One, and in Chinese characters is compounded of two 
 signs: iz (ta) meaning "great" and — (yih) meaning 
 
THE CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. 6l' 
 
 "one," Ji (ta-yih or Tien), The Peerless, the Great, the 
 High, the Exalted, the One, stands above all else. It is 
 personified as the ancestor of all things, as the framer, as 
 having decrees and will, as sending sages to teach the 
 people, as knowing men's hearts, and as comforting them. 
 This was the solace of Confucius when he desponded be- 
 cause men would not hear him: "Heaven knows me." 
 With the other multitude of nature spirits believed in by 
 the common people, the sages had little to do. "Respect 
 the gods, and keep them at a distance," was a remark of 
 Confucius when pressed by his disciples regarding the 
 bearing of a wise man toward them. These gods were 
 spirits of the sun, moon, stars, earth, mountains, rivers, 
 and ancestors of the people. 
 
 Putting beside these facts the less complete and prob- 
 ably less trustworthy accounts of travelers from Central 
 and Northern Asia, we recognize some striking coinci- 
 dences. "Everywhere we find a worship of the spirits of 
 nature, of the spirits of the departed, though behind and 
 above it there rises the belief in some higher power, known 
 by different names, sometimes called the Father, the Old 
 One, who is the Maker and Protector of the world, and 
 who always resides in heaven." From Chinese historians 
 we learn that the Huns worshiped the sun, moon, spirits 
 of the sky and earth, and spirits of the departed. Menander, 
 a Byzantine writer, relates of the Turks in his time, that 
 they worshiped fire, water, earth, and believed in and 
 sacrificed to a god whom they regarded as the maker of 
 the world. Castren, the chief modern authority on the 
 religion of these Northern Mongolians (See his Vor- 
 lesungen iiber Unnische Mythologie), says of the Tungusic 
 tribes: "They worship the sun, the moon, the stars, the 
 earth, fire, the spirits of forests, rivers, and certain sacred 
 localities ; they worship even images and fetishes, but with 
 all this they retain a faith in a supreme being which they 
 
62 THE CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. 
 
 call Buga'' " The Samoyedes," he says, "worship idols 
 and various natural objects; but they always profess a 
 belief in a higher divine power which they call Num.'' This 
 deity they also call Junta, which is the same as the Jumala 
 of Finland. Jumala, from Juma, thunder, and la, the 
 place, meant originally the sky. Later it signified the god 
 of the sky, and finally came to designate gods in general. 
 Among Lapps, Esthonians, Syrjanes, Tcheremissians, and 
 Votyakes the same word is found with slight dialectic vari- 
 ations having the like chief signification. Castren tells a 
 good story to illustrate Samoyede sun worship, or heaven 
 worship where the sun is thought of as the heaven god. 
 He asked an old woman whether she ever said her prayers. 
 She replied : "Every morning I step out of my tent and bow 
 before the sun, and say, 'When thou risest, I, too, rise from 
 my bed.' And every evening I say, When thou sinkest 
 down, I, too, sink down to rest.' " And she added with 
 a touch of self-righteousness : "There are wild people who 
 never say their morning and evening prayers." 
 
 So much for the general similarity of religions; but 
 are there no linguistic connections? We saw that the 
 Chinese Tien meant sky, god of the sky, and god in gen- 
 eral, being in meaning the exact counterpart of the North- 
 Turanian Jumala, In Mongolian speech we find Teng-ri 
 with the same three meanings, with the later signification of 
 spirit or demon, good or bad. In Turkish we have Tangry 
 or Tenri, and in Yakute Tangara. Earlier Chinese authors 
 tell us that the Huns gave to their leaders the title Tangli- 
 Kutu (or in Chinese Tchen-jii), which meant in Hunnish 
 speech Son of Heaven. Now this title Son of Heaven, 
 Tien-tze, is also the Chinese designation of their emperor. 
 Again, the Chinese historians say that the Tukiu, the an- 
 cestors of the Turks, worshiped the spirits of the earth, 
 calling them the Pu-teng-i-lL If, as is probable, pu means 
 
THE CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. 63 
 
 earth, we have in teng-i-li the MongoHan teng-ri, used in 
 that early thne as the general name of gods and spirits. 
 
 In this series then we have a piece of linguistic evidence 
 of considerable value. We perceive for those of the family 
 in closest connection a name derived from a common root 
 given to the highest deity, and afterwards passing through 
 like organic changes in the process of development. "Every- 
 where they begin with the meaning of sky, they rise to 
 the meaning of God, and they sink down again to the 
 meaning of gods and spirits." These changes of mean- 
 ing in the words run parallel with the changes which took 
 place in the religions of these peoples. 
 
 We have now seen the basis on which Professor Miiller 
 would set up a science of religion. The linguistic evidence 
 for a classification of the religions of peoples dwelling in 
 Africa, America, and Polynesia is not taken up in this 
 work. The three groups most conspicuous in history are 
 examined and the case is thought strong enough to draw 
 the induction, that in linguistic relationships we have the 
 ground for the most useful divisions within the field of re- 
 ligion. Leaving aside the incompleteness of the examination 
 both as to the number of groups left out and the unsatisfac- 
 toriness of the result, especially in the case of the Turanians, 
 the questions should be raised : Most useful for what pur- 
 pose? and why exclude other classifications for other pur- 
 poses ? As I have again and again remarked, each division 
 which proceeds to look at the subject from a new point of 
 view adds its contribution toward a complete understand- 
 ing, and consequently is just as legitimate and indispen- 
 sible as any other. Whoever then in an attempt to be 
 scientific makes a new ground of division should endeavor 
 not to commit that grossest of unscientific deeds, viz., 
 the exclusion of facts within his field, even though those 
 facts come in the form of classifications which he did not 
 originate and over which he consequently does not glow 
 
64 THE CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. 
 
 SO earnestly. It has not been established by anything Pro- 
 fessor Miiller has brought forward, nor do I know of any 
 reason why it should be assumed, that "scientific" and 
 "genetic" cover each other, as he seems to assume at the 
 outset. Like all the views before studied, this has its pe- 
 culiar place. This sort of starting-point for the study of 
 Religions puts us on track of racial and historic connections 
 and relationships between them. It affords help toward 
 answering one of the greatest demands of our times, viz., 
 the question as to the origin and development of things, 
 i. e., the "genesis" question. In this respect it is indeed 
 a welcome suggestion. Yet we must not be so blind in our 
 enthusiasm as to suppose the questions over which we and 
 our age are chiefly interested constitutes the scope of "sci- 
 entific" investigation. Through language it is possible to 
 study mythologies and religions as in no other way. Their 
 organic relationship can be shown of ttimes beyond a doubt, 
 and then by the aid of history their relative claims of orig- 
 inality and independence can be reasonably settled. In this 
 way unjustifiable assumptions may be set aside and credit 
 be placed where it belongs. It consequently incites to 
 progress by driving us beyond these old assumptions, since 
 it shows us their origin, their relation to other similar 
 ones, their process of development, and, if we will, will help 
 to point out a higher standing-ground for the future. 
 Whatever can assist toward such desiderata has need of 
 no other excuse for its presence. 
 
 //. According to Ethnological Relationships and Histor- 
 ical Connections, 
 
 A NEW CLASSIFICATION. 
 
 The reason for an ethnological classification of religions 
 is the fact that religion gets its character from the people 
 or race who develop it or who adopt it, and that the re- 
 
THE CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. 65 
 
 Hgions of related peoples are more nearly alike in char- 
 acter. I have already quoted Max Miiller's remark that 
 "particularly in the early history of the human intellect, 
 there exists the most intimate relationship between lan- 
 guage, religion and nationality.'* As history advances 
 the lines do not run quite so closely parallel. Each and 
 all become intermixed and influenced from without; yet 
 the cast imparted to it and the type which its exponents 
 give it are ever manifest. (Compare, e. g., English, Span- 
 ish, and Russian Christianity.) However, notwithstand- 
 ing all the deviations or separations between race and re- 
 ligion, there yet remains a striking unanimity. This is 
 presented to us at a glance when we take the trouble to 
 compare an ethnographic and a religious map of the world. 
 We have in our time, however, to compare groups or fami- 
 lies of each instead of individuals or single members as 
 would be the case in a study of the conditions in ancient 
 times. 
 
 Within the last few years we have heard much about 
 universal religions as contrasted with national or race 
 religions; but how strictly in the mass of the populations 
 the racial lines are maintained and how thoroughly they 
 modify any importations of foreign faiths brought about 
 by military might or political influence, is most manifest 
 as soon as our attention is given to the situation. To take 
 an illustration or two from the best known cases: the 
 Christianity of the Romish type, although preached with 
 an unrivalled pertinacity, has signally failed to take a 
 deep hold upon the Teutonic, or Germanic, races. It has 
 been able to take root only where the Roman civilization 
 had been or was at the same time planted. The indepen- 
 dent spirit of Northern Europe was never subjected to the 
 Roman yoke, and as soon as it reached a sufficient degree 
 of culture, it produced its Wiclifs, Husses, and Luthers 
 who, with the material then at hand, developed a distinct 
 
66 THE CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. 
 
 racial religious tendency. And the tenacity with which 
 these lines yet hold is too well known to need a word of 
 comment or support. Just as Romanism has found it im- 
 possible to penetrate northward, so Protestantism has made 
 little impression on Southern Europe. Wherever Romance 
 peoples are (in Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, Mexico, 
 and South America), there is Roman Christianity in the 
 ascendency; wherever Teutonic, or Germanic, peoples are 
 (in Germany — excepting the southern part where the pop- 
 ulation is less purely German, and where it was more sub- 
 jected to Roman civilization — Scandinavia, Great Britain, 
 Iceland, United States, British America, and Australia) 
 there is Protestantism. 
 
 Now the same influences, forces, and isolated circum- 
 stances which developed a special race developed at the 
 same time a special religion, which is a necessary con- 
 stituent element or part of a race (at least after man had 
 reached a certain stage of mental power or growth). Or, 
 as above explained, if the religion be one imposed upon the 
 race from without, it is destined to be made over and modi- 
 fied to correspond with the peculiar character, notions, and 
 circumstances of the people who come to adopt it. Only 
 an occasional thinker rises above the peculiarity which 
 makes his people a distinct one and advocates more uni- 
 versal tendencies; and since the influence of these rare- 
 coming individuals must be for various reasons exceed- 
 ingly limited (especially because the broader views which 
 they preach, in negating so much of the old peculiarities, 
 seem to the masses irreligious), the stamp given to a re- 
 ligion must ever come in greater part from the side of the 
 mediocrity of the population. Only at rare intervals in 
 history does there come a juncture of conditions when 
 individual influence can rise so high as to overturn the 
 popular views; and then we have the beginning of what 
 later is called a new religion. The new views are grad- 
 
THE CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. 67 
 
 ually taken up by the masses and gradually but certainly 
 wrought over, interpreted and developed to correspond 
 to the tendencies and environments of the race in ques- 
 tion. Now it should be evident that a religion is not suf- 
 ficiently understood (whatever else we may know about 
 it) until it is seen in reference to these racial peculiarities 
 and circumstances of life. And if religion cannot be stud- 
 ied in its fulness and fairness without going into its eth- 
 nical manifestations, not more can we expect without such 
 a treatment to obtain a due appreciation for this great 
 historic factor. An ethnological study of the field will have 
 the advantage of showing what has been contributed by 
 the various races to the full idea or concept of religion. 
 It will show us that its essence has been conceived to con- 
 sist in now one and now another element, and through 
 this will teach the elements which properly belong within 
 its domain. In this way, its investigation will do away 
 with a multitude of misconceptions and onesided ideas. 
 Believing then, as I do, that new light may be thrown 
 upon religious phenomena by undertaking its examination 
 in such a manner as above suggested, and believing, as I 
 have said elsewhere, that such a study is demanded by 
 the broad candid requirements of our genuine modern 
 science ; I ofifer the accompanying ethnographical divisions 
 and outline tables as a guide for such an examination. 
 Although we are far from possessing the material for a 
 complete understanding of all these peoples, yet more is at 
 hand than most of us are aware of, more perhaps than we 
 yet have capacity to use, and more, it is to be feared, than 
 we yet have disposition to use with fairness and impar- 
 tiality toward those belonging to other stems of the race. 
 In support of this remark about the material which stands 
 ready for scientific disposal, as well as for the general cor- 
 respondence of the arrangements here adopted with the 
 facts, I beg leave to call attention to the works of Tylor, 
 
68 
 
 THE CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. 
 
 Spencer, Fr. Miiller, Peschel, Ratzel, Hartmann, and 
 Waitz, and to the multitude of works referred to by these 
 well-known writers. 
 
 A TENTATIVE ETHNOGRAPHICO-HISTORICAL CLASSIFICATION 
 
 OF THE HUMAN RACES TO FACILITATE THE STUDY 
 
 OF RELIGIONS.— IN FIVE DIVISIONS. 
 
 
 TABLE 
 
 I. 
 
 
 Malayans 
 
 Sumatra 
 Java 
 Borneo 
 Madagascar 
 
 ' Formosa 
 
 
 East Malayans - 
 
 Phillipine 
 Celebes 
 ^ Molucca 
 
 X 
 
 Micronesians - 
 
 r Pelew 
 Caroline 
 Marshall 
 
 ^ Gilbert 
 
 o - 
 is 
 
 Melanesians 
 
 ' Solomon 
 Fiji 
 
 New Caledonia 
 New Hebrides 
 New Guinea 
 
 ^ Tasmania 
 
 
 Polynesians 
 Australians 
 
 r Tonga 
 
 Samoa 
 
 Society 
 
 Marquaesas 
 
 Paumotu 
 ^ Hawai 
 
 
 . Maori (New Zeal 
 
 anders). 
 
 as 
 
 < M 
 5 OS 
 
 TABLE II. 
 
 See V'dlker-Karte in Ratzel's V5lkerkunde, Bd. I, 20. 
 Negroes: Peoples of the Soudan region etc, 
 Bantus: Kafir and Kongo Peoples of Central Africa. 
 Quoi-Quoin: Hottentots and Bushmen. 
 
 For North Africans, see Table V. 
 
THE CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. 
 
 69 
 
 TABLE III. 
 
 1. Eskimo. (The connecting link with Mongolian.) 
 
 2. North American Indians. (Including many tribes from British America to 
 
 theGulf of Mexico.) 
 
 3. Nahuas. (Including the Aztecs, Toltecs. and Nahuas extending from Van- 
 
 couver's Island to Nicaragua.) 
 
 4. Antilleans. (Including the Mayas in Yucatan and the Natchez between the 
 
 Red and Mississippi Rivers. Were one of the most gifted of American 
 peoples. Subjected by the Caribs.) 
 
 5. Muyscas or Chidchas. (In South America.) 
 
 6. Quichua, Aymara, etc. (Culminating in the sun worship of the Incas of 
 
 Peru. A natural growth to a very high stage.) 
 
 7. Caribs and Arowaks. (Along the whole north coast of South America.) 
 
 Brazillian f Tupi-guaranos 
 
 8. South American Indians 
 
 Southern and South-east 
 Tribes 
 
 Indies Mansos 
 Abipones 
 Pampas Indians 
 Puelches 
 Pategonians (or 
 Tehuelches). 
 '" Fuegians. 
 
 TABLE IV. 
 
 Mongol-Tartars of Northern and North-Eastern Asia. 
 
 ' Lapps 
 Estbonians 
 Finns 
 Magyar 
 Turkish 
 ^ Tibetan 
 Burmese 1 
 Siamese 
 
 Ural-Altaic 
 
 (original unity of this branch has been 
 proved by Castrettj the highest au- 
 thority on it.) 
 
 Indo-Chinese 
 
 { 
 
 Confucianism <r 
 
 Taoism 
 
 Chinese Buddhism 
 
 Japanese -^ 
 
 (Old national religion Kami-no -mad a t i I 
 or Sin-to.) ^ ^..:eJ.:«w 
 
 Chinese t 
 (ancient 
 national^"" 
 religion) 
 
 r Confucianism 
 
 J (Introd. from China in 7th cent.) 
 Buddhism 
 ^•v. (Introd. from Corea about 552) 
 
TABLE V. 
 Babylonian — Assyrian 
 Aramaean (Syrian) 
 Phoenician — Carthagenian 
 
 {Moabitic and Ammonitic .2 - 
 Mosaism and f Kingdoms! « H f Judaism (or Prophetism 1 f Modern Judaism 
 Pre-Mosaic -j of Israel ?■ o.«2 i modified by Medo-Per- M [Oriental 
 
 LandJudahJ g^ [. sian and Babylonian) J (. Christianity-! Romish 
 
 (.Protestant 
 
 o S 
 
 Egyptian (Ancient) ( ?) 
 
 rSabaean (Himyaritic) 
 Pre-historic Arabic ■< North Arabic — Hanfis — Mohammedanism 
 
 1. (depending largely on Judaism and Christianity) 
 Hamites (Ethiopian^) {Berbj;^^ 
 
 fNyaya 
 c 1 Vaiseshika 
 §• 4J J Sankhya 
 
 S^JYoga 
 
 Mimansa 
 LVedanta 
 
 ' 3 f Vishnuism ' 
 I c X Sivaism 
 
 (To a consid- 
 erable extent 
 superseded by 
 Mohammedan- 
 ism) 
 
 Recent r Sikhs 
 • move--? Rammohun Roy 
 meats 1 Keshab Cander Sen 
 
 ffiuddhism { Si"ifSl ExfeS*of . 
 iMahayana;r5„HHM=rr,1 
 
 I 
 
 Jainism. . 
 
 f Cvetambara 
 1 Digambara 
 
 Buddhism 
 
 Northern - 
 
 Southern 
 
 U <4 
 
 -1 
 
 ■^< 
 
 i^'. 
 
 HO 
 
 ^ *^ rt D rtX! S-JS O*' c3 o*^ 
 
 -^6 5 
 
 r« 
 
 c» 
 
 
 u 
 
 •a 
 
 
 c 
 
 rt 
 u 
 rt 
 
 N 
 
 rt 
 
 
 ;^ 
 
 U5 
 
 "O**- 
 
 
 o 
 
 •H 
 
 "5 
 
 
 rt 
 
 i 
 
 "rt 
 > 
 
 rt 
 
 rt 
 
 > >» 1 
 
 l,C/i 
 
 
 Vi 
 
 o 
 
 "O-ja r Median Magism 
 ^ S3 -^ Old Persian of 
 ■^ Ph [. the Achaemenides 
 Phrygian 
 
 Of Asia Minor ] fHomeric 
 
 and Crete [Hellenic (containing elements J Hesiodic 
 Of Achaia ( from Phrygia and Phoenicia) | Delphic 
 
 Of Pelasgia J LAthenian 
 
 'Modern Parseeism (in Kirman and Bombay regions") 
 
 Manichaeism (composed of Persian, Christian, and 
 Buddhistic elements) 
 
 Ossets ] 
 
 Georgians I 
 
 Armenians V Now Mohammedans 
 
 Kurds 
 .Afghans J 
 
 Philosophers f^^leS 
 (Thales to Neo- ^ ,k>ffiff. 
 Platonism) 
 
 ] (Oriental 
 (. Christian) 
 
 c r Latin ^ f Italians 
 
 .2 J Sabine J- Old f Roman reformed by f Grecianized \ Romance J Spaniards 
 
 rt 1 EtruscanJ Roman 1 the Tarquinii ( ?) ( Roman J Peoples ) Portuguese 
 ^ LSamnitic L French 
 
 ;Gallo-Cymric j^Armoric 
 i Welsh 
 Manx 
 
 Lettic 
 
 iOld Russian [Svarog, Dajbog. OgonuJ 
 Wendic 
 Polish and Czechish (Bohemian) 
 Servian, Bulgarian, Hungarian 
 
 High German [Tio, Wuotan, etc.] )■ ■{ Suavish 
 
 f Coast German [Woden, Goden] f N.W. German 
 Low German \ Frisian [Woda] ( Dutch 
 
 LSaxon [Wodan] M English 
 
 ["Danish 
 Aesir [Odhin, Thor] I Swedish 
 
 Vanir [Njordh, Frey, Freya] j Norwegian 
 
 [Icelandic 
 
 * This title was given by Oscar Peschel. It is not very fitting, but answers as well as 
 any other proposed. Gerland uses "Indo-European." Blumenbach called these peoples 
 "Caucasian." 
 
 t On the subdivisions of this family see the discussion of "The Primeval Aryans." 
 
 s 
 
 o 
 
 
 
 -0 
 
 rj 
 
 c 
 a J 
 
 6 
 
 o 
 
 
 CO 
 
 V 
 
 
 Oi 
 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 o 
 
 S 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 ■n 
 
 /o 
 
 <6 
 
THE CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. /J; 
 
 FINALE. * 
 
 We have now had a glance at the chief methods of 
 classifying religious phenomena. We perceive moreover 
 the various starting-points and principles from which the 
 divisions are made. It is to be hoped also that their ad- 
 vantages and limitations have been suggested, if not fully 
 set forth. It shall not be my calling hereafter to ignore 
 these various methods, but on the contrary to often refer 
 to some of them with pleasure. They are neither to be un- 
 qualifiedly adopted nor narrowly excluded. They serve 
 their respective purposes ; but because of these virtues, we 
 are not justified in resting content as soon as our desires 
 for clearness are in part satisfied. It must be carefully 
 borne in mind that this subject has never had. a universal 
 and impartial investigation such as has been given to 
 many other fields ; hence the best theories about it are but 
 inductions made on imperfect bases. We may trust that 
 here, as everywhere else, nature is greater than our great- 
 est guesses, and for this reason we may not hasten to tie 
 ourselves up for fear of getting too far, especially if we 
 divest our minds of every interest but that of desire to 
 get at the largest truth. But how is this largest truth 
 to be attained? Surely not without seeing the greatest 
 possible number of the facts. And not less surely ought 
 those facts to be studied with as little perconceived theory 
 as may be. Our better sciences proceed by gathering the 
 facts in an orderly manner, and then looking to see what 
 laws and principles they point toward. It is the business 
 of history and ethnology to furnish this material; it be- 
 longs to philosophy to draw the inductions. It strikes me 
 then that religion (and not more this than any other human 
 expression) does not receive full scientific justice until it 
 has been investigated, historically, ethnologically, and phil- 
 osophically ; in other words, in terms of time, space and in- 
 
7^ THE CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. 
 
 most essence. Inasmuch as there is virtually no history 
 obtainable (in the continuous chronological and develop- 
 mental sense) for most of the peoples of the world, the 
 historical and ethnical study must go for the most part 
 hand in hand. 
 
 The first requisite for such an undertaking is to obtain 
 through ethnological science a general notion of the races 
 of men and of the various leading branches of these, past 
 and present. This has been attempted in the five preceding 
 tables, and the reasons for it have been given in former 
 pages of this treatise and in the one on "Introduction to 
 a Historico-Ethnical Study of Religions.'' Those leading 
 races now form so many leading points of inquiry under 
 each of which many questions are to be asked; and first 
 from the multitude of answers returned may be undertaken 
 the building up of the body or superstructure of what we 
 may fitly term a genuine science of religion. 
 
OUTLINE OF INQUIRIES FOR A HISTORICO-ETHNICAL 
 STUDY OF RELIGIONS. 
 
 I. Preliminary Questions (briefly) : 
 
 1. The Racial Relations of the Special People. 
 
 2. Their Relative Position in History, and the Principal Great Events 
 
 in Their Career. 
 
 3. Their Residence and Phj^sical Surroundings : 
 
 Climate — cold, hot, moderate and stimulating. 
 Land surface — mountains, level, plateau, desert. 
 Water — rivers, lakes, seas, archipelago. 
 Flora, fauna, minerals. 
 
 Striking natural phenomena — storms, hurricanes, volcanoes, 
 earthquakes. 
 
 4. Their Stage of Development in general : 
 
 Material— How do they live? (i) By hunting and fishing, (2) 
 by herding and pasturing, (3) by simple agriculture, (4) by 
 scientific agriculture, manufacture, and trade. — Tools, weap- 
 ons, shelter. 
 
 Intellectual — language, literature, art. 
 
 Social — family, government. 
 
 Moral — virtues, vices in their own regard, relations to surround- 
 ing nations. 
 
 II. Source of Their Religion : 
 
 1. Founder or Founders — chief circumstances of their lives. 
 
 2. Relative Originality and Chief Sources of Influence. 
 
 3. Sacred Literature — divisions, general character, theoretic origin, ac- 
 
 tual origin. 
 
 III. Their Conception of the Universe: 
 
 1. Its Form or Shape. 
 
 2. Its Nature or Substances. 
 
 3. Its Origin or Creation. 
 
 4. Their Theory of the Source of Evil 
 
 IV. Their Conceptions of Supernatural Beings — Their Theism : 
 
74 THE CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. 
 
 1. Names, Nature and Functions of the Gods. Are they : 
 
 Simple tangible or visible objects, — stones, bones, shells, herbs, 
 bits of wood, feathers, weapons, rocks, water, skins, animals, 
 particular places — i. e., to what extent is fetichism prevalent? 
 
 Semi-tangible or semi-visible objects — mountains, rivers, earth, 
 fire, wind, rain, lightning — i. e., to what extent does a lower 
 nature worship prevail? 
 
 Intangible or invisible objects — sky, sun, moon, stars, dawn, 
 spirits of ancestors and of great men, spirits in and independent 
 of objects, personified abstract conceptions as virtues, fates, etc. 
 
 Whether the polytheism is of a miscellaneous, democratic, mon- 
 archical, or henotheistic conception? 
 
 Whether a monotheistic conception is attained by individuals or 
 by the people at any time in their career? 
 
 Whether they developed a philosophy, and if so, what it attained 
 to — dualism, spiritual monism, or materialistic monism? 
 
 2. Character of the Gods — power, wisdom, beneficence, malevolence. 
 
 (Only dualistic religions divide their deities into divine and de- 
 moniacal and their future state into heaven and hell.) 
 
 V. Their Conception of Man's Nature; 
 
 1. His Origin, 
 
 2. His Relation to Supernatural Beings. 
 
 3. The Character of the Idea of Salvation (if any) i. e., from what to 
 
 what? Is it only sensuously thought, or does it refer to some con- 
 dition or state of mind to be avoided and some spiritual accom- 
 plishment to be aimed at, and if the latter, what is the chief feature 
 of the resulting mental development — intellectual, moral, sym- 
 pathetic, esthetic, etc.? 
 
 4. Their Notion of a Future Life — death, resurrection, region of the 
 
 dead (immediately after death and their permanent abode, whether 
 (a) in solitary gorges and valleys, or on hill tops, where the living 
 rarely go; (b) on distant islands toward the setting sun; (c) in 
 an under and shadowy realm below our world; (d) among the 
 stars or beyond them in a heavenly kingdom for good and a lower 
 place of punishment or torment for the wicked; (e) a spiritual 
 state out of spacial relations). 
 
 VI. What Suggestion Does Their Environment Offer Toward Ex- 
 plaining Their Theism and Eschatology? 
 
 VII. CuLTUs: 
 
 1. Creeds — character, and relation to the authority on which they assume 
 
 to be based, how regarded? 
 
 2. Ceremonies — ^prayers, offerings, sacrifices, assemblies, songs, dances, 
 
 incantations, feasts, fasts. 
 
 3. Ordinances having regard specially to individual life — birth, circum- 
 
 cision, confirmation, baptism, marriage, anointing of sick, burial, 
 commemoration, canonization, excommunication. 
 
THE CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. 75 
 
 4. Organizations, 
 
 Institutions, sects. 
 
 Priesthood — its orders, ordination, duties, standing, vestments. 
 Shamans — sorcerers, magicians, medicine men, miracle workers, 
 prophets. 
 
 5. Places of Worship — temple, altar, sacred groves, hills, valleys ; sacred 
 
 utensils. 
 
 6. Symbolism — geometric forms, monograms, paintings, figures. 
 
 VIII. Moral Teachings, or Relation of the Religion to Practical Life — vir- 
 tues, vices. 
 
 IX. Progressive or Dogmatic in Tendency : 
 
 1. Direction and Strength of this. 
 
 2. Heresies — their nature, i. e., whether party reactions or growths of 
 
 thought, their treatment by the dominant faith. 
 
 X. The Central Idea of the Religion : 
 
 1. In Theory. 
 
 2. Its Greatest Emphasis in its Practical Carrying-out. 
 
 3. Other Essential Ideas. 
 
 XI. Its Peculiar Contribution Toward Showing the Scope or Full 
 Content of Religious Life. 
 


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