OR, A DIRECT DIVINE REVELATION A NECESSARY BY GEORGE BLENCOWE. BIBLIOTHECH AUG 1882 SODLEIANA London: PUBLISHED FOR THE AUTHOR. T. WOOLMER, 2 CASTLE STREET, CITY ROAD; AND 66 PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C. 141. j. 530 PREFACE. IN the Hibbert Lecture of 1878, Professor Max Müller thus describes the process by which the students of the science of religion arrive at their results:- Instead of approaching the religions of the world with the preconceived idea that they are either corruptions of the Jewish religion, or descended, in common with the Jewish religion, from some common primeval revelation, they have seen that it is their duty first to collect all the evidence of the early history of religious thought that is still accessible in the sacred books of the world, or in the mythology, customs, and even in the language of the various races. Afterwards, they have undertaken a genealogical classification of all the materials that have hitherto been collected, and they have only approached the question of the origin of religion in a new spirit, by trying to find out how the roots of the various religions, 5 |