An Introduction to the History of Religion

Excerpt from An Introduction to the History of Religion

In this book the history of early religion is investigated on the principles and methods of anthropology, and in the belief that the interests of truth and religion are fundamentally identical.

The work is intended primarily for students who require an introduction to the history of religion, but will also, it is hoped, prove interesting to students of folk-lore and anthropology, and to the wider circle of general readers.

As far as I am aware, there is no other book which covers exactly the same ground as this does, or which attempts to summarise the results of recent anthropology, to estimate their bearing upon religious problems, and to weave the whole into a connected history of early religion.

Thus far, then, this book is original, namely, as far as regards the use to which its materials are put; but the materials themselves are largely, though not wholly, derived from the writings of others. In all cases I have endeavoured to express my obligations in the footnotes. I am, however, more especially bound to mention here the name of the late Professor Robertson Smith, to whose Religion of the Semites my obligations are too great for their expression to be confined to footnotes. My indebtedness to the works of Messrs. E. B. Tylor, A. Lang, and Frazer is here gratefully acknowledged.

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