Religion, when looked upon not as supernatural, but as thoroughly natural to man, has assumed a new meaning and a higher dignity when studied as an integral part of that historical evolution which has made man what he is, and what from the very first he was meant to be. Is it no comfort to know that at no time and in no part of the world, has God left Himself without witness, that the hand of God was nowhere beyond the reach of the outstretched hands of babes and sucklings; nay, that it was from those rude utterances out of the mouth of babes and sucklings, that is, of savages and barbarians, that has been perfected in time the true praise of God? To have looked for growth and evolution in history as well as in nature is no blame, and has proved no loss to the present or to the last century; and if the veil has as yet been but little withdrawn from the Holy of Holies, those who come after us will have learnt at least this one lesson, that this lifting of the veil which was supposed to be the privilege of priests, is no longer considered as a sacrilege, if attempted by any honest seekers after truth. _Gifford Lectures, I._ Religion consists in the perception of the infinite under such manifestations as are able to influence the moral character of man. _Gifford Lectures, I._ No opinion is true simply because it has been held either by the greatest intellects or by the largest number of human beings at different periods in the history of the world. No one can spend years in the study of the religions of the world, beginning with the lowest and ending with the highest forms, no one can watch the sincerity of religious endeavour, the warmth of religious feeling, the nobleness of religious conduct, among races whom we are inclined to call pagan or savage, without learning at all events a lesson of humility. Anybody, be he Jew, Christian, Mohammedan, or Brahman, if he has a spark of modesty left, must feel that it would be nothing short of a miracle that his own religion alone should be perfect throughout, while that of every other believer should be false or wrong from beginning to end. _Gifford Lectures, I._ The more we study the history of the religions of the world, the clearer it becomes that there is really no religion which could be called an individual religion, in the sense of a religion created, as it were _de novo_, or rather _ab ovo_, by one single person. This may seem strange, and yet it is really most natural. Religion, like language, is everywhere an historical growth, and to invent a completely new religion would be as hopeless a task as to invent a completely new language. Nor do the founders of the great historical religions of the world ever claim this exclusive authorship. On the contrary, most of them disclaim in the strongest terms the idea that they have come either to destroy, or to build a completely new temple. _Gifford Lectures, I._