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FROM COMPARATIVE RELIGION TO
HISTORY OF RELIGIONS
A. EUSTACE HAYDON
University of Chicago
The history of religions is replacing the search for an essential religion. For a
long time the bias involved in identifying religion with some particular revelation
made comparative religion a new form of apologetics. With the rise of the idea of
social evolution there began the effort to discover, by the comparative method, the
law of religious evolution and the nature of religion. For many reasons the compara-
tive method proved unsatisfactory. The present interest is to appreciate the unique
significance of each individual religion with the consequence that scientific history of
religions takes primary place.
Perhaps no branch of study has struggled under so many
burdening presuppositions and the handicap of so much vague-
ness as that which attempts to interpret the religions of man-
kind. A religion is sacred, involving things of unspeakable
value to a human group; religions are universal, common to
all races of men in all ages, and yet, after more than half a
century of laborious study of this precious and universal phase
of human behavior, scholars have not been able to agree upon
a definition of religion. There are hundreds of definitions,
ranging from some so narrow as to be exclusive to others so
broad as to be empty of definite signification. The theological
presuppositions inherited by Christian, Jewish, and Moslem
writers often color their definitions as in India the bias is likely
to be toward a philosophical or mystical emphasis. Some
definitions are stiff with dogmatic self-righteousness, some are
contemptuous, some prejudiced, and many partial. This fog
of confusion has made uncertain sailing for the religious
sciences; but a compensation now emerges in that the effort
of comparative religion or hierology to string the religions of
the planet on the thread of a definition or a law of religious
development and to evaluate them in relation to a selected
standard is giving way to a new emphasis upon the humbler
577
578 TEE JOURNAL OF RELIGION
task of tracing the historic development of individual religions.
To be sure, history of religions has always held an important
position in the science of religion, but a position often pre-
paratory to that of comparative religion which made use of
its materials in the quest for the law of religious evolution and
an interpretation of religion in general. Development, growth,
and change were never taken radically with the result that the
search for religion obscured the unique individuality of
religions.
This presupposition of a fundamental religion appeared in
several forms. The most natural was in the work of the
apologist who assumed that his own religion embodied the
truth of man's relation to the supernatural toward which all
religions were blindly striving or from which they had fallen
away. Again, it was philosophical and sought in the drift of
cosmic history to trace the temporal manifestation of a uni-
versal spirit. Or it was psychological, overemphasizing the
"psychological unity of the race" and finding in this unity the
clue to the process of religious development. Finally, among
men more cordial to evolutionary theory, there was the effort
to arrange religious data so as to show the stages of the develop-
ment of religion from primitive origins to the highest forms
of culture religions. Whatever the emphasis, however, theo-
logical, philosophical, psychological, or anthropological, the
comparative method was the tool and servant of all. Now
comes the era of pluralism; and particular religions, even the
individual forms and ideas of particular religions, demand that
they be evaluated and understood in their own unique and
peculiar significance, and not distorted to fit into a mythical
concept of religion in general. This means, in a word, that the
thoroughgoing application of the historical method in the treat-
ment of religions has begun.
Critical, objective interpretation of the religions of the world
is one of the new fruits of modern scholarship. Only students
of this last generation use the terms "religious sciences" and
COMPARATIVE RELIGION TO HISTORY OF RELIGIONS 579
" science of religion " without a sense of strangeness. Previous
to the middle of the nineteenth century any unbiased and
open-minded appreciation of all religions was impossible for
the majority of men. The reason lay in the ancient under-
standing of religion as a way of salvation revealed by a trans-
cendent God, embodied in sacred books and mediated by
special spiritual means to mankind. The true religion was
designated by the revelation. There could be no easy tolerance
of false religions. During the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth
centuries Judaism, Islam, and Christianity, each confident of
its own revelation, faced each other at the Mediterranean in
dogmatic defiance. The touch of the Greek spirit in the New
Learning brought no softening of religious dogmatism and the
Reformation with its warfare of Christian sects held small hope
of sympathy for foreign faiths. Yet the new sciences, the new
philosophy, the new commerce, political changes, explorations
revealing new lands and religions, could not fail to influence
thinking men. Historic thought forms became too narrow to
contain the new world-spirit. The writings of Alexander Ross,
the Deists, Dupuis, De Brosses, Hume, Herder, and Lessing indi-
cate a new attitude toward the non- Christian peoples. Until
the opening of the nineteenth century, however, strict theo-
logical circles held firmly to the theory of revelation yielding
to the new knowledge of other faiths only to the extent of
admitting the possibility of a primitive revelation to all
peoples which had been lost or obscured among the heathen.
The middle of the nineteenth century marks the beginning
of a new era in the study of religions. In the first place, materi-
als were available to act as a check upon dogmatism and
a priori, philosophic speculation. The sacred texts of other
religions were being translated; archaeology had begun to
yield its precious records; traders, explorers, travelers, and
scientists furnished reports at first hand from unknown terri-
tories. The very mass of materials was a challenge to research.
More important perhaps than the availability of documents and
580 THE JOURNAL OF RELIGION
data was the growing popularity of the Darwinian hypothe-
sis in biology which was being taken over by anthropologists
and ethnologists and soon began to appear in theories of social
evolution. Then flowered the comparative method by which
facts were gathered from the ends of the earth and from all
ages and levels of culture, classified under catchwords and used
to demonstrate some chosen theory of development. In the
midst of this intensive study of culture it was inevitable that
religion should be included in the survey. Comparative
religion was born and in the hands of Max Mttller, Tiele, de
la Saussaye, and Albert ReVille claimed a place among the
empirical sciences.
It would be a mistake to assume, however, that, with the
advent of the new science, the traditional theory of a divine
revelation was abandoned. It was too deeply imbedded in
Christian theology and in social tradition to be so easily shaken.
Yet in the works of the late nineteenth century a new attitude
appears. Omitting the solid conservatives who thrust aside
the materials of comparative religion with the contemptuous
remark, "There is no comparison," there were some who made
selective use of them to demonstrate the superiority of Chris-
tianity, and others who became advocates of a theory of revela-
tion in a new form. Accepting with perfect frankness the
history of religions and the idea of development and change,
they maintain that the whole process takes place under divine
guidance and control. Accepted as a philosophy of religion the
theory retains the values of revelation and yet claims to give
complete freedom to the study and appreciation of the historic
development of all religions. This point of view is much more
common than is generally supposed among writers of the last
thirty years. A philosophy of religion formulated on the
basis of religious facts and experience and growing out of them
is one thing; an a priori philosophy of religion continuing in
new form an inherited tradition is quite another. The tend-
ency of the latter is to color, distort, or sanctify historic facts.
COMPARATIVE RELIGION TO HISTORY OF RELIGIONS 581
In the hands of a man like Reville the search for the leadership
of the divine Spirit added a glow to his scholarly treatment of
the history of religions. In the hands of others it becomes too
frequently a source of blindness and prejudice. This theory
has made it possible for Judaism to see in the experiences of
Israel the special path of God in history. It has inclined
Moslem and Christian writers to localize the divine interposi-
tion and guidance in certain great personages and events and
to make it extremely difficult to deal objectively with these
sacred personages, records, and events. In a word, it tends
to erect some particular religion as a standard and to judge
others in relation to the selected norm. The result is apolo-
getics rather than the empirical study of religions.
Apologetics has its own value and justification. No one
may deny the right of the Christian apologist to use the history
and thought-forms of other religions in order to demonstrate
the superiority of his own faith. The unfortunate thing is
that these writers do not call it apologetics but comparative
religion. A Handbook of Comparative Religion by Dr. S. H.
Kellogg, an American pioneer in the study of religions, asserts
that all religions other than that of Christ must be regarded as
false. By a comparative study of doctrines, 1 Canon Maccul-
loch comes to the conclusion that, while there was a real
preparation for Christian doctrine in every pagan religion,
Christianity is the final and normative faith. In a handbook
prepared for the Anglican church under the title Comparative
Religion by Dr. W. St. Clair Tisdall the reader is given the
assurance of the divine authority of Christianity, its unques-
tionable pre-eminence, and its ultimate complete triumph over
its foes. The Hartford-Lamson Lectures of 1907 were delivered
by Dr. F. R. Jevons under the title "An Introduction to the
Study of Comparative Religion." As an anthropologist he
speaks of the evolution of religion but claims that the task of
comparative religion is to demonstrate that Christianity is the
1 Canon J. A. Macculloch, Comparative Theology.
582 THE JOURNAL OF RELIGION
highest manifestation of the religious spirit. All these works
are apologetics and should be frankly so named. Scholars
who have been working to win a place for comparative religion
among the empirical sciences have a just cause of complaint
against this appropriation of the name.
Parallel to this group, often antagonistic to it and inclined
increasingly to pass over into anthropology and sociology was
that formidable array of scholars who labored to establish an
evolutionary theory of religious development. They aban-
doned all speculative and theological presuppositions and sought
to discover the origin of religion and the law of its develop-
ment on the basis of the facts furnished by the study of relig-
ions. The titles of the Hibbert Lectures illustrate this point
of view. They read, for example, "The Origin and Develop-
ment of Religion: Illustrated by the Religions of India"; "by
the Religion of Ancient Egypt"; "by the History of Indian
Buddhism"; "by Celtic Heathendom"; "by the Religions of
Mexico and Peru." The quest was for an understanding of
religion. Individual religions were merely sources of data to
reveal the law of religious evolution. The great instrument
was the comparative method coupled with some theory as to
the psychic nature of man such as "a faculty of faith," "the
sense of the infinite," "the psychological unity of the race,"
"religious instinct," or "a religious consciousness." Vast
stores of material were at hand and labeled under such terms
as "fetishism," "magic," "taboo," "animism," "totemism,"
"shamanism," "sacrifice," and the rest. It remained only for
the scholar to arrange the materials to fit his hypothesis in
order to present a very plausible sketch of the development
of religion.
But the case rested upon three assumptions. First, that
religion is a certain basic thing in all religions and that phe-
nomena are therefore similar everywhere leaving to the investi-
gator only the task of discovering the order of their arrange-
ment. Second, that human nature is a unit producing similar
COMPARATIVE RELIGION TO HISTORY OF RELIGIONS 583
forms when brought into contact with external nature. Third,
that religious ideas and forms are capable of being gathered
under universal terms owing to that similarity. The effort
to set forth the law of development resulted in confusion and
conflict among the investigators. It was soon evident that
the selected order of development might be entirely subjective
and that the demonstration was achieved by arbitrary choice
of a beginning of religion and careful selection from the mass
of materials to fit the plan. There followed a period of con-
troversy among the advocates of the various theories. First,
as to point of origin. Was fetishism the first stage of religion ?
Or did it begin in an awed respect for the great powers of
nature ? Was shamanism the earliest form of religious control
or does taboo mark the first stage ? Was animism the starting-
point of supernatural dualism or did it begin in reverence for
the souls of the dead or in the combination of soul and demon
or spirit ? Or must we push back to a pre-animism or anima-
tism or even to an original manaism, an awed attitude toward
the mysterious powers active in nature and in living things?
Does magic precede religion in the arrangement or is religion
prior and magic a degradation and later development? All
theories found advocates and all could be subjectively justified
by a judicious use of the endless data.
A second source of difficulty was psychological. The rapid
development of psychology greatly reduced the significance of
"the psychological unity of man" and discredited such con-
cepts as "a faculty of faith," a "religious instinct," and a
"religious consciousness" as original endowments of human
nature. This cut under the old confidence that there must
be a uniform manner of religious development and directly
attacked the uncriticized use of comparative data since forms,
apparently similar, might arise from different psychic causes
and be really different.
Slowly the comparative method broke down. The classi-
fication of materials in pigeonholes of general terms became
584 THE JOURNAL OF RELIGION
impossible with more intensive research. Fetishism was no
longer one thing but many. Totemism had no significance
unless it was very carefully specified what, when, and where.
Ancestor worship had its own peculiar meanings in different
social settings. The same thing was found to be true of other
phases of religious activity and thought. It was seen to be a
fallacy to group phenomena together under a general term
when an examination of them in their own cultural environ-
ment might show them to be different. And, because they
seemed to the observer to be similar, to extract them from their
own milieu where they had their peculiar individuality and
make them march with others in the fine of a scholar's theory
was to compound the fallacy. Moreover it was pointed out
that a phenomenon at one stage might not have the same
psychic significance in its later functioning even in the same
society; borrowed by another group it might have almost
none of its old meaning and to treat it uncritically as the same
thing was to miss an important distinction. The arrangement
of materials in a line of development became a most dubious
undertaking. Since all races of men have lived a long time on
the earth it seemed quite possible that the various elements of
early religions might not represent stages of development in
relation to each other but might be the accumulated technique
of ages and exist side by side at the dawn of history. The
comparative method hoped to draw general laws on the basis
of widely scattered data apparently similar. It now appeared
that similar things could not be taken as the same thing when
they were different. If scientific accuracy demanded that
every religious idea and form be interpreted with all the thick
meaning it carried in its own cultural and genetic setting the
comparative method was robbed, if not stripped, of value. 1
Its worth, as a source of suggestion as to possible developments
and contacts, when individual religions were under survey,
would depend upon a careful, critical appraisal of the local
1 For a searching critic of method see Frederick Schleiter, Religion, and Culture.
COMPARATIVE RELIGION TO HISTORY OF RELIGIONS 585
significance of the data. This cautious and restricted use of
the comparative method is well illustrated by Dr. L. R. Farnell
in his studies of the development of the Greek religion. 1
The failure of the comparative method was first evident to
the anthropologists. Comparative religion still held its ground.
After the bad lands of origins were abandoned there were still
the broad areas of the history of culture religions. Professor
J. E. Carpenter writes:
The study of comparative religion assumes that religion is already
in existence. It deals with actual usages which it places side by side
to see what light they can throw upon each other It is not
concerned with origins Just as the general theory of evolution
includes the unity of bodily structure and mental faculty, so it will
vindicate what may be called the unity of the religious consciousness.
The old classifications based on the idea that religions consisted of a
body of doctrines which must be true or false, reached by natural reflec-
tion or imparted by supernatural revelation disappear before the wider
view. Theologies may be many but religion is one. 2
Thus is maintained the old quest to find religion under the
manifold manifestations of religious thought and activity
through the ages. A variant of the quest is found in the work
of George Foucart 3 who selected the religion of Egypt, owing
to its antiquity, its long untroubled development and abun-
dant materials, as the ideal basis of comparison. With
this all others are compared. Here apologetics is abandoned
and the exaltation of one religion to the supreme place is not
the goal. The search is seriously made for the meaning of
religion and the laws underlying its development. The most
tireless modern champion of comparative religion, Mr. L. H.
Jordan, 4 is especially vigorous in his repudiation of the misuse
1 The Cults of the Greek States; cf. also his "Inaugural Lecture of the Wilde
Lectures in Natural and Comparative Religion," p. 9.
2 Comparative Religion, pp. 30, 31, 34.
3 La Mtthode Comparative dans I'histoire des Religions.
4 See Comparative Religion, Its Genesis and Growth; Comparative Religion, Its
Method and Scope, etc.
586 TEE JOURNAL OF RELIGION
of the study in the service of apologetics. But the more one
becomes detached from bias and from special admiration of
one religion, the more objectively the data of religions are
studied, the more it appears impossible to draw them into a
neat generalization. To appreciate them truly is to see them
in their peculiar individuality. To set them side by side with
others in order to look at them serves only to make them more
distinctly different. Comparative religion loses meaning unless
one has already some preconceived idea as to the standard of
religious excellence or some philosophical presupposition as to
a single cosmic power at work under all the forms. As an
instrument for discovering the law of religious evolution the
comparative method is hopelessly inadequate. The compari-
son of data is meaningless unless some connection can be shown.
If the effort is to secure an appreciation of the many religions
of the world that result can be achieved more perfectly by the
history of religions. If the desire is to explain why certain
ideas and forms arise under certain conditions that task falls
under the scope of psychology of religion. If one seeks to show
how interaction and borrowing have taken place the history
of the religions concerned will reveal it. If religion, after all,
is not one but many, a valid religious science will devote itself
to the conscientious interpretation of each one of the multitude.
When the comparative method fell into disfavor there still
remained the hope that the law of religious evolution might
be discovered by another method, namely, by selecting an
isolated group and making an intensive study of a single devel-
opment. This Durkheim attempted for Australia. No gen-
eralization in regard to religion as a racial product seems
possible from this method. Even though the data were certain
and all contacts with other groups assuredly absent what is
achieved may be the history of a unique and individual reli-
gious development. This in itself is a very valuable result
but no inference may safely be drawn from it as to the early
stages of any other single religion.
COMPARATIVE RELIGION TO HISTORY OF RELIGIONS 587
What remains then is the study of religions in all their vast
variety. History of religions assumes a new dignity. Its
task is to deal not with religion but religions, each of them the
product of the life of a human group and claiming to be inter-
preted in all the richness of its individuality. The given thing
is human life seeking satisfaction in a specific environment.
The story of this co-operative quest for the good life in rela-
tion to varying natural surroundings is the story of the religion
in its early stages. There are certain basic needs and desires.
The geographic situation presents advantages, dangers, and
problems. The slowly expanding appreciation of the cosmic
powers with which men deal, the slowly developing technique
of control from rudimentary forms of magic word and rite to
the sciences, the enlarging conception of the good life from
fundamental physical needs to the higher spiritual values all
enter into the story. And each religious development has its
own distinct individuality not to be lost or obscured by any
preconceived idea of religion as ideally represented in any
other group or as formulated by a comparative study of many.
This demands a sincere and thoroughgoing use of the historical
method in the treatment of every particular religion and of
the ideas and forms of every religion and an appreciation of
their unique significance to the people who use them. If this
great labor can be carried through it holds out the hope of a
sympathetic understanding of all religions as products of human
groups rooted in the earth and striving, not always successfully,
to achieve a worthful life. Not only will it give an authentic
vision of the varied gropings of the families of mankind for
the higher values of life but it will make possible an apprecia-
tive knowledge of the distinctive religious attitudes, heritages,
and attainments of the races now intermingling in a narrowed
world and so, perhaps, open a pathway for the coming of a
religion of humanity as the co-operative quest of the good
life of the race.
