Produced by Paul Murray, Turgut Dincer and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF/Gallica) at http://gallica.bnf.fr) +---------------------------------= | Transcriber's note: | | Bold characters are surrounded | | by "+" sign. | +---------------------------------+ HANDBOOKS ON THE HISTORY OF RELIGIONS EDITED BY MORRIS JASTROW, JR., PH.D. _Late Professor of Semitic Languages in the_ _University of Pennsylvania_ VOLUME IV LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS Handbooks on the History of Religions INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF RELIGIONS BY CRAWFORD HOWELL TOY LATE PROFESSOR IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY CAMBRIDGE HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS 1924 COPYRIGHT, 1913 BY CRAWFORD HOWELL TOY ALL RIGHTS RESERVED _Third Impression_ PRINTED AT THE HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS CAMBRIDGE, MASS., U.S.A. PREFACE The object of this volume is to describe the principal customs and ideas that underlie all public religion; the details are selected from a large mass of material, which is increasing in bulk year by year. References to the higher religions are introduced for the purpose of illustrating lines of progress. The analytic table of contents and the index are meant to supplement each other, the one giving the outline of the discussion, the other giving the more important particulars; the two together will facilitate the consultation of the book. In the selected list of works of reference the titles are arranged, as far as possible, in chronological order, so as to indicate in a general way the progress of investigation in the subjects mentioned. My thanks are due to the publishers for the care they have taken in the printing of the volume, and to their proofreaders, particularly to the chief proofreader, for not a few helpful suggestions. C. H. T. CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS CONTENTS (The Arabic figures in the chapter summaries refer to paragraphs) PAGE CHAPTER I. NATURE OF RELIGION 1