Oriental religions and their relation to universal religion : India / by Samuel Johnson.

  • Samuel Johnson
Date:
1879
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Oriental religions and their relation to universal religion : India / by Samuel Johnson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    13/428 page 1
    INTRODUCTORY. * I 'HE pages now offered as a contribution to the Natural History of Religion are the xhestand- outgrowth of studies pursued with constant P°int- interest for more than twenty years. These studies have served substantially to confirm the views pre- sented in a series of Lectures, delivered about that number of years since, on the Universality of Relig- ious Ideas, as illustrated by the Ancient Faiths of the East. So imperfect were the sources of positive knowledge then accessible, that I chose to defer publi- cation ; and such increase of light has been constantly flowing in upon this great field of research ever since, that I have continued to defer my report thereon, in view of the existing state of scholarship, until the present moment, when such reasons are comparatively without force. Engaged for many years in the public presentation of themes and principles of the nature here illustrated, I cannot but note that a trustworthy statement of what the non-Christian world has to offer to the eye of thoroughly free inquiry, in mat- ters of belief, is more and more earnestly demanded ; that in the present stage of religious questions it is indispensable; and that the sense of inadequacy felt by all who have thoughtfully approached the subject, in a degree which none but themselves can compre-
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