Ten Great Religions

Book Summary

The publisher of this book utilises modern printing technologies as well as photocopying processes for reprinting and preserving rare works of literature that are out-of-print or on the verge of becoming lost. This book is one such reprint. Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: § 6. It ivill shmo that, while most of the Religions of the World are Ethnic, or the Relii/ions of Races, Christianity is Catholic, or adapted to become the Rclioion of all Races. By ethnic religions we mean those religions, each of which has always been confined within the boundaries of a particular race or family of mankind, and has never made proselytes or converts, except accidentally, outside of it. By catholic religions we mean those which have shown the desire and power of passing over these limits, and becoming the religion of a considerable number of persons belonging to different races. Now we are met at once with the striking and obvious fact, that most of the religions of the world are evidently religions limited in some way to particular races or nations. They are, as we have said, ethnic. Ve use this Greek word rather than its Latin equivalent, gentile, because gentile, though meaning literally " of, or belonging to, a race," has acquired a special sense from its New Testament use as meaning all who are not Jews. The word '' ethnic " remains pure from any such secondary or acquired meaning, and signifies simply that which belongs to a race. The science of ethnology is a modern one, and is still in the process of formation. Some of its conclusions, however, may be considered as established. It has forever set aside Blumenbach's old classification of mankind into the Caucasian and four other varieties, and has given us, instead, a division of the largest part of mankind into Indo- European, Semitic, and Turanian families, leaving a considerable penumbra outside as yet unclassified. That mankind is so divided into races of men it would seem hardly possible to deny. It is proved by physiology, by psychology, by glossology, and by civil history. Physiology ...

Book Details