Such a visitor could not fail to find his interest continue to grow as he listened to such details. But if he had pressed for further information as to the nature of this conflict, and had sought to learn what law or meaning underlay this extraordinary instinct which had thus driven successive generations of men to carry on such a prolonged and desperate struggle against forces set in motion by their own intellect, it is not improbable that his guide would at this point have shrugged his shoulders and changed the subject.

This is probably all the visitor would learn in this manner. Yet, as his perplexity increased, so also might his interest be expected to grow. As he learnt more of our history he would not fail to observe the important part these religions had played therein. Nay, as he came to understand it and to view it, as he would be able to do, without prepossession, he would see that it consisted to a large extent of the history of the religious systems he saw around him. As he extended his view to the history of other nations, and to that of our civilisation in general, he would be met with features equally striking. He would observe that these systems had exercised the same influence there, and that the history of our Western civilisation was largely but the life-history of a particular form of religion and of wide-extending and deep-seated social movements connected therewith. He would see that these movements had deeply affected entire nations, and that revolutions to which they gave rise had influenced national development and even to a considerable extent directed its course amongst nearly all the peoples taking a leading part in the world around him.

As he inquired deeper he could not fail to be struck by the extraordinary depth and dimensions of the

conflict to which his guide had incidentally referred, namely, that waged between these religions and the forces set in motion by human reason ; and he would see also, that not only had it extended through a great part of the history of Western civilisation, but that it was quite true that it was still in progress. Regarding this conflict impartially, he could not fail also to be impressed profoundly by the persistence of the instinct which inspired it, and he would doubtless conclude that it must have some significance in the evolution which we were undergoing.

His bewilderment would probably increase as he looked beneath the surface of society. He would see that he was in reality living in the midst of a civilisation where the habits, customs, laws, and institutions of the people had been influenced in almost every detail by these religions; that, although a large proportion of the population were quite unconscious of it, their conceptions of their rights and duties, and of their relationship to each other, their ideas of liberty, and even of government and of the fundamental principles of society, had been largely shaped by doctrines taught in connection with them. Nay, more, he would see that those who professed to entirely repudiate the teachings of these religions, were almost as directly affected as other sections of the community, and that whatever their private opinions might be, they were quite powerless to escape the influences of the prevailing tone and the developmental tendencies of the society in which they lived.

But the feature which would perhaps interest him most of all would probably attract attention later. He would observe that these forms of religious belief which his guide had spoken of as survivals, had nevertheless the support of a large proportion of perfectly sincere and earnest persons; and that great movements in connection with the prevailing forms of belief were still in progress; and that these movements, when they were studied, proved to have the characteristic features which had distinguished all similar movements in the past. He would find that they were not only independent of, but in direct conflict with the intellectual forces; that although they not infrequently originated with obscure and uncultured persons, they spread with marvellous rapidity, profoundly influencing immense bodies of men and producing effects quite beyond the control of the intellectual forces of the time.

Such a visitor, at length, would not fail to be deeply impressed by what he had observed. He would be driven to conclude that he was dealing with phenomena, the laws and nature of which were little understood by the people amongst whom he found himself; and that whatever might be the meaning of these phenomena they undoubtedly constituted one of the most persistent and characteristic features of human society, and not only in past ages but at the present day.

If, however, our visitor at last endeavoured to obtain for himself by a systematic study of the literature of the subject some insight into the nature of the phenomena he was regarding, the state of things which would meet his view would excite his wonder not a little. If at the outset he endeavoured to discover what all these various forms of religion admittedly had in common, that is to say, the distinguishing characteristic they all possessed, from the forms of belief prevalent amongst men in a low social state up to those highly-developed religions which were playing so large He

a part in the life of civilised peoples, he would be met by a curious fact. He would find everywhere discussions on the subject of religion. Besides an immense theological literature, exclusively devoted to the matter, he would encounter the term at every turn in the philosophical and social writings of the time. would find a vast number of treatises, and innumerable shorter works and articles in periodical publications, devoted to discussions connected with the subject and to almost every aspect of the great number of questions more or less intimately associated with it. But for one thing he would search in vain. He would probably be unable anywhere to discover any satisfactory definition of this term "religion" which all the writers were so constantly using, or any general evidence that those who carried on the discussions had any definite view as to the function in our social development of the beliefs they disputed about, if, indeed, they considered it necessary to hold that they had any function at all.

He would probably find, at a very early stage, that all the authorities could not possibly intend the word in the same sense. At the one extreme he would find that there was a certain class of beliefs calling themselves religions, possessed of well-marked characteristics, and undoubtedly influencing in a particular manner great numbers of persons. At the other he would find a class of persons claiming to speak in the name of science, repudiating all the main features of these, and speaking of a true religion which would survive all that they held to be false in them, i.e. all that the others held to be essential. Between these two camps, he would find an irregular army of persons who seemed to think that the title of religion might be properly applied to any form of belief they might hold, and might choose so to describe. He would hear of the religion of Science, of the religion of Philosophy, of the religion of Humanity, of the religion of Reason, of the religion of Socialism, of Natural Religion, and of many others. In the absence of any definite general conception as to what the function of a religion really was, it would appear to be held possible to apply this term to almost any form of belief (or unbelief), with equal propriety.

If he attempted at last to draw up a list of some representative definitions formulated by leading authorities representing various views, he would find the definitions themselves puzzling and conflicting to an extraordinary degree. It might run somewhat as follows :

CURRENT DEFINITIONS OF RELIGION.

Seneca. To know God and imitate Him. Kant.-Religion consists in our recognising all our duties as Divine commands.

Ruskin. Our national religion is the performance of Church ceremonies, and preaching of soporific truths (or untruths) to keep the mob quietly at work while we amuse ourselves.

Matthew Arnold. - Religion is morality touched by emotion.
Comte. The Worship of Humanity.

Alexander Bain. -The religious sentiment is constituted by the Tender Emotion, together with Fear, and the Sentiment of the Sublime.

Edward Caird.- A man's religion is the expression of his ultimate attitude to the Universe, the summed-up meaning and purport of his whole consciousness of things.

Hegel. The knowledge acquired by the Finite Spirit of its essence as an Absolute Spirit.

Huxley. Reverence and love for the Ethical ideal, and the desire to realise that ideal in life.