AN ANALYSIS OF RELIGIOUS BELIEF. CHAPTER I. HOLY BOOKS, OR BIBLES. VAST, and even immeasurable, as the influence has been, which has been exercised on the course of human development by the great men of whom we have spoken, it has been equalled, if not surpassed, by the influence of the peculiar class of writings which we have grouped together under the designation of Holy Books. Of this, the last manifestation of the Religious Idea, it will be necessary to speak in considerable detail; both on account of its intrinsic importance, and because it is a branch of the subject which has not hitherto received the attention it deserves. We have been far too much accustomed in Europe to treat the Bible as a book standing altogether by itself; to be admired, reverenced and loved, or, it may be, to be criticised, objected to and rejected, not as one of a class, but as something altogether peculiar and unparalleled in the literary history of the world. VOL. II. A And, undoubtedly, if we compare it with ordinary literature of whatever description, whatever age, and whatever nation, this opinion is just. Neither in the poetry, the history, or the philosophy of any other nation do we find any work that at all resembles it. Nevertheless it would be a very rash conclusion to arrive at, that because in the whole field of Greek or Roman, Italian or French, Teutonic or Celtic literature, there is nothing that admits of being put in the same category with the Bible, therefore the Bible cannot be placed in any category at all. It is one of & numerous class; a class marked by certain distinct characteristics; a class of which some specimen is held in honour from the furthest East of Asia, to the extreme West of America, or, in other words, throughout every portion of the surface of the earth which is inbabited by any race with the smallest pretence to civilisation and to culture. Wherever there is literature at all, there are Sacred Books. If in some isolated cases it is not so, these cases are exceptions too trifling in extent to invalidate the rule. Speaking generally we may say, that every people which has risen above the conditions of savage life; every nation which possesses an organised administration, a settled domestic life, a religion with developed and complex dogmas, possesses also its Sacred Books. If this truth has been too generally forgotten; if the Bible has been too commonly treated as something exceptional and peculiar which it was the glory of Christianity to possess, this omission is probably in great part due to the fact that the attention of scholars has been too much confined to the literature, the religion, and the general culture of the Greeks and Romans. From |