This train of inferences follows--so far as it is permitted illogical inferences to follow at all--from {11} 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 {12} 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 {13} 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