Arrangements have been made for a course of lectures during the winter of 1897-98, by the Rev. T. K. Cheyne, M.A., D.D., Professor of Old Testament Interpretation at Oriel College, Oxford, and Canon of Rochester; whose subject will be Religious Thought and Life among the Hebrews in Post-Exilic Days, to be followed in 1898-99 by a complementary course on Religious Life and Thought among the Hebrews in Pre-Exilic Days, by Professor Karl Budde, of the University of Strasburg, Germany. JOHN P. PETERS, C. H. TOY, MORRIS JASTROW, JR. _Committee on Publication._ _May 10, 1897._ CONTENTS. PAGE LECTURE I. THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF PRIMITIVE RELIGIONS—METHODS AND DEFINITIONS. Ethnology Defined—The Scientific Study of Religions—It is not Theology—Its Methods: 1. The Historic Method; 2. The Comparative Method; 3. The Psychologic Method—Strange Coincidences in Human Thought—Conspicuous in Primitive Religions—“Primitive” Peoples Defined—The Savage Mind—Examples—Means of Study: 1. Archæology; 2. Language: 3. Folk-Lore; 4. Descriptions of Travellers—Examples: The Early Aryans, Etruscans, Semites, Egyptians, American Tribes, Australians, Polynesians, etc.—“Religions” Defined—Compared with “Superstitions”—No One Belief Essential to Religion—Atheistic Religions—Fundamental Identity of Religions—No Tribe Known Devoid of a Religion—How the Opposite Opinion Arose—Earliest Men probably had No Religion—No Signs of Religion in Lower Animals—Power of Religion in Primitive Society—True Source of Religion 1 LECTURE II. THE ORIGIN AND CONTENTS OF PRIMITIVE RELIGIONS. Former Theories of the Origin of Religions—Inadequacy of these—Universal Postulate of Religions that Conscious Volition is the Source of Force—How Mind was Assigned to Nature—Communion between the Human and the Divine Mind—Universality of “Inspiration”—Inspiration the Product of the Sub-Conscious Mind—Known to Science as “Suggestion”—This Explained—Examples—Illustrations from Language—No Primitive Monotheism—The Special Stimuli of the Religious Emotions: 1. Dreaming and Allied Conditions—Life as a Dream—2. The Apprehension of Life and Death and the Notion of the Soul—3. The Perception of Light and Darkness; Day and Night—The Sky God as the High God—4. The Observation of Extraordinary Exhibitions of Force—The Thunder God—5. The Impression of Vastness—Dignity of the Sub-Conscious Intelligence 41 LECTURE III. PRIMITIVE RELIGIOUS EXPRESSION: IN THE WORD.