The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1870-08-06
The Origin Of Religion.

The celebrated linguist, Professor MAX
MULLER. delivered last winter before the
British Royal Institution a series of lectures
on the Science Of Religion, which are now in
the course Of publication in various maya
zines. The learned Professor treats the sub
joct with the same breadth and fullness, and
the same richness Of illustration, which rem
dered his lectures on language so interesting
but he seems to us 10 proceed, as do many
other scientific men who have undertaken Il
similar task, upon a radically unsound as
sumption.
Professor MULLER asserts what is undoubt-
eddy true, that the various forms Of religion
which have prevailed and do prevail upon
the earth may be classified like languages;
and further, that there are family likenesses
between certain religions and classes of reli-
gions and certain languages and groups of
languages Hence he infers that because
language is of human invention and elabo-
ration, religions are also of human origin,
and he proceeds TO discuss them accordingly.
The theory that there was enc primeval reve-
lation 10 the ancestors Of the human race,
which has been corrupted and distorted into
many forms, he disputes, as having no better
foundation than that which makes language
to have been similarly revealed in single
primitive FORM and afterwards broken up
INTO the languages of the world. Without
going 30 far az Mr.. Barring GOULD and
ascribing religion 10 the secretive action
of the cerebral glands, he none the less
believes il TO have been contrived
out Of an ingenious and poetical interpreta
tion of natural phenomena The idea of II
supernatural revelation he scouts as entirely
worthless in a scientific point of view, and
more than hints that II rests only upon fraud
and delusion,
II is not demonstrable by actual proof
that without revelation mankind would have
no conception Of God of the life after death,
and of religious matters in general because
as far back as history extends, and as widely
| as the explorations of modern travellers
| have extended, the world has at no time, and
| in no locality, been left without such reve,
laton more or less perfectly preserved. TIE
oldest authentic records in c1,uence are those
Of the Jewish nation and they are known to
embody fragments of still more ancient writ
] irgs As to the sacred books of the Asiat
cs. they may or may not possess the antiqui
ty assigned TO them but admitting them to
be as much older than the Hebrew Scrip
lures as it lie asserted they are, still they toe
proiessedly embody ideas which have not
been invented by men, but which were trans
mtted from higher source. The heather
who have no written books have still oral ira
ditions Of . supernatural revelation and even
the savages Of America and Africa point Il
time when their ancestors received instruc
tion from supernatural beings, But 30 ia
as this universally of o belief in revelation
proves anything, it proves that belief to b.
true. What is 30 generally credited is no
likely to be the fabrication of interested dc
ceivers.
But further than this, observation teache
that the unasssted faculties of the huma
lind do not suggest the theory or the pra,
} tees of religion. There never was chill
] who. OF himself discovered the existence ,