Transcriber’s Note
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BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
THE MYTHS OF THE NEW WORLD: A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythologyof the Red Race of America. Second edition, revised. Large 12mo,$2.50.
THE RELIGIOUS SENTIMENT: Its Source and Aim. A Contribution to theScience and Philosophy of Religion. Large 12mo, $2.50.
THE
RELIGIOUS SENTIMENT
ITS SOURCE AND AIM
A CONTRIBUTION TO THE SCIENCE AND
PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.
BY
DANIEL G. BRINTON, A.M., M.D.
Member of the American Philosophical Society, the American Philological
Society, etc.; author of “The Myths of the New World,” etc.
NEW YORK
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
1876.
Copyright,
BY HENRY HOLT
1876.
John F. Trow & Son, Printers,
205-213 East 12th St., New York.
PREFACE
Mythology, since it began to receive a scientific handling at all, hasbeen treated as a subordinate branch of history or of ethnology. The“science of religion,” as we know it in the works of Burnouf, Müller,and others, is a comparison of systems of worship in their historicdevelopment. The deeper inquiry as to what in the mind of man gave birthto religion in any of its forms, what spirit breathed and is everbreathing life into these dry bones, this, the final and highestquestion of all, has had but passing or prejudiced attention. To itsinvestigation this book is devoted.
The analysis of the religious sentiment I offer is an inductive one,whose outlines were furnished by a preliminary study of the religions ofthe native race of America, a field selected as most favorable by reasonof the simplicity of many of its cults, and the absence of theoriesrespecting them. This study was embodied in “The Myths of the New World;a Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America”(second edition, N. Y. 1876).
The results thus obtained I have in the present work expanded by