An Introduction to the Study of Comparative Religion. F. B. Jevons

to their value and importance. It is, or rather it would be, quite absurd to say, in the case of literature, or art, for instance, that the two orders are identical. There it is obvious and universally admitted that one period may reach a higher level than another which in point of time is later. The classical period is followed by a post-classical period; culmination is followed by decline. Now, this difference in point of the literary or artistic value of two periods is as real and as fundamental as the time order or chronological relation of the two periods. It would be patently ridiculous for any ardent maintainer of the importance of distinguishing between good literature and bad, good art and bad art, to say that the one period, being good, must have been chronologically prior to the other, because, from the point of art, it was better than that other. Every one can see that. The chronological order, the historic order, is one thing; the order of literary value or artistic importance is another. But if this is granted, and every one will grant it, then it is also, and thereby, granted that the historic order of events is not the same thing as the order of their value, and is no guide to it. Thus far I have illustrated these remarks by reference to literary and artistic values. But I need hardly say that I have been thinking really all the time of religious values. If the student of literature or of art surveys the history of art and literature with the purpose of judging the value of the works produced, the student of religion may and must survey the history of religion with the same purpose. If the one student is entitled, as he justly is entitled, to say that the difference between the literary or artistic value of two periods is as real and as fundamental as is their difference in the order of time, then the student of religion is claiming no exceptional or suspicious privilege for himself. He is claiming no privilege at all; he is but exercising the common rights of all students like himself, when he points out that differences in religious values are just as real and just as fundamental as the historic or chronological order itself.

      The assignment of values, then—be it the assignment of the value of works of art, literature, or religion—is a proceeding which is not only possible (as will be somewhat contemptuously admitted by those who believe that evolution is progress, and that there is no order of value distinct from the order of history and chronological succession); the assignment of value is not only permissible (as may be admitted by those who believe, or for want of thought fancy they believe, that the historic order of events is the only order which can really exist), it is absolutely inevitable. It is the concomitant or rather an integral part of every act of perception. Everything that we perceive is either dismissed from attention because it is judged at the moment to have no value, or, if it has value, attention is concentrated upon it.

      From this point of view, then, it should be clear that there is some deficiency in such a science as the science of religion, which, by the very conditions that determine its existence, is precluded from ever raising the question of the value of any of the religions with which it deals. Why does it voluntarily, deliberately, and of its own accord, rigidly exclude the question whether religions have any value—whether religion itself has any value? One answer there is to that question which once would have been accepted as conclusive, viz. that the object of science is truth. That answer delicately implies that whether religion has any value is an enquiry to which no truthful answer can be given. The object of science is truth; therefore science alone, with all modesty be it said, can attain truth. Science will not ask the question—or, when it is merciful, abstains from asking the question—whether religion is true. So the reasonable and truthful man must, on that point, necessarily be agnostic: whether religion is true, he does not know.

      This train of inferences follows—so far as it is permitted illogical inferences to follow at all—from the premise that the object of science is truth. Or, rather, it follows from that premise as we should now understand it, viz. that the object of historic science is historic truth. That is the object of the science of religion—to be true to the historic facts, to discover and to state them accurately. On the principle of the division of labour, or on the principle of taking one thing at a time, it is obviously wise that when we are endeavouring to discover the historic sequence of events, we should confine ourselves to that task and not suffer ourselves to be distracted and diverted by other and totally different considerations. The science of religion, therefore, is justified, in the opinion of all who are entitled to express an opinion, in steadfastly declining to consider any other point than the historic order of the facts with which it deals. But in so declining to go beyond its self-appointed task of reconstituting the historic order of events and tracing the evolution of religion, it does not, thereby, imply that it is impossible to place them, or correctly place them, in their order of value. To say that they have no value would be just as absurd as to say that works of literature or art have no literary or artistic value. To say that it is difficult to assign their value may be true, but is no argument against, it is rather a stimulus in favour of, making the attempt. And it is just the order value, the relative value, of forms of religion which is of absorbing interest to missionaries. It is a valuation which is essential to what I have already designated as the applied science of religion. Thus far in speaking of the distinction between the historic order in which the various forms of art, literature, and religion have occurred, and the order of value in which the soul of every man who is sensible either to art or to literature or to religion instinctively attempts to place them, I have necessarily assumed the position of one who looks backward over the past. It was impossible to compare and contrast the order value with the historic order, save by doing so. It was necessary to point out that the very same facts which can be arranged chronologically and in the order of their evolution can also be—and, as a matter of fact, by every man are—arranged more or less roughly, more or less correctly, or incorrectly, in the order of their value. It is now necessary for us to set our faces towards the future. I say "necessary" for the simple reason that the idea of "value" carries with it a reference to the future. If a thing has value, it is because we judge that it may produce some effect and serve some purpose which we foresee, or at least surmise. If, on looking back upon past history, we pronounce that an event had value, we do so because we see that it served, or might have served, some end of which we approve. Its value is relative in our eyes to some end or purpose which was relatively future to it. The objects which we aim at, the ends after which we strive, are in the future. Those things have value which may subserve our ends and help us to attain our purposes. And our purposes, our ends, and objects are in the future. There, there is hope and freedom, room to work, the chance of remedying the errors of the past, the opportunity to make some forward strides and to help others on.

      It is the end we aim at, the object we strive for, the ideal we set before us, that gives value to what we do, and to what has been done by us and others. Now our ends, our objects, and our ideals are matters of the will, on which the will is set, and not merely matters of which we have intellectual apprehension. They are not past events but future possibilities. The conviction that we can attain them or attain toward them is not, when stated as a proposition, a proposition that can be proved, as a statement referring to the past may be proved: but it is a conviction which we hold, or a conviction which holds us, just as strongly as any conviction that we have about any past event of history. The whole action of mankind, every action that every man performs, is based upon that conviction. It is the basis of all that we do, of everything that is and has been done by us and others. And it is Faith. In that sign alone can the world be conquered.

      When, then, the man of religion proposes by faith to conquer the world, he is simply doing, wittingly and in full consciousness of what he is doing, that which every man does in his every action, even though he may not know it. To make it a sneer or a reproach that religion is a mere matter of faith; to imagine that there is any better, or indeed that there is any other, ground of action—is demonstrably unreasonable. The basis of such notions is, of course, the false idea that the man of sense acts upon knowledge, and that the man who acts on faith is not a sensible man. The error of such notions may be exposed in a sentence. What knowledge have we of the future? We have none. Absolutely none. We expect that nature will prove uniform, that causes will produce their effects. We believe the future will resemble, to some extent, the past. But we have no knowledge of the future; and such belief as we have about it, like all other belief—whether it be belief in religion or in science—is simply faith. When, then, the man of science consults the records of the past or the experiments of the present for guidance as to what will or may be, he is exhibiting his faith not in science, but in some reality,