Part 1 (1/2)
The Hearts of Men.
by H. Fielding.
DEDICATION.
To F. W. FOSTER.
As my first book, ”The Soul of a People,” would probably never have been completed or published without your encouragement and a.s.sistance, so the latter part of this book would not have been written without your suggestion. This dedication is a slight acknowledgment of my indebtedness to you, but I hope that you will accept it, not as any equivalent for your unvarying kindness, but as a token that I have not forgotten.
THE HEARTS OF MEN.
RELIGION.
”The difficulty of framing a correct definition of religion is very great. Such a definition should apply to nothing but religion, and should differentiate religion from anything else--as, for example, from imaginative idealisation, art, morality, philosophy. It should apply to everything which is naturally and commonly called religion: to religion as a subjective spiritual state, and to all religions, high or low, true or false, which have obtained objective historical realisation.”--_Anon._
”The principle of morality is the root of religion.”--_Peochal._
”It is the perception of the infinite.”--_Max Muller._
”A religious creed is definable as a theory of original causation.”--_Herbert Spencer._
”Virtue, as founded on a reverence for G.o.d and expectation of future rewards and punishment.”--_Johnson._
”The wors.h.i.+p of a Deity.”--_Bailey._
”It has its origin in fear.”--_Lucretius and others._
”A desire to secure life and its goods amidst the uncertainty and evils of earth.”--_Retsche._
”A feeling of absolute dependence, of pure and entire pa.s.siveness.”--_Schleiermacher._
”Religious feeling is either a distinct primary feeling or a peculiar compound feeling.”--_Neuman Smyth._
”A sanction for duty.”--_Kant._
”A morality tinged by emotion.”--_Matthew Arnold._
”By religion I mean that general habit of reverence towards the divine nature whereby we are enabled to wors.h.i.+p and serve G.o.d.”--_Wilkins._
”A propitiation or conciliation of powers superior to man, which are supposed to control the course of nature and of human life.”--_J. G.
Frazer._