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THIRD LECTURE.
DELIVERED AT THE ROYAL INSTITUTION,
MARCH 5, 1870.
TF we approacked the religions of mankind without
1 any prejudices or predilections, in that frame of mind in which the lover of truth or the man of science ought to approach every subject, I believe we should not be long before recognising the natural lines of demarcation which divide the whole religious world into several great continents. I am speaking, of course, of ancient religions only, or of the earliest period in the history of religious thought. In that primitive period which might be called, if not prehistoric, at least purely ethnic, because what we know of it consists only in the general movements of nations, and not in the acts of individuals, of parties, or of states--in that primitive period, I say, nations have been called languages; and in our best works on the ancient history of mankind, a map of languages now takes the place of a map of nations. But during the same primitive period nations might with equal right be called religions; for there is at that time the same, nay, an even more intimate, relationship between religion and nationality than between language and nationality.
In order clearly to explain my meaning, I shall have to refer, as shortly as possible, to the specula
G2
