Author: Grant Allen

Publisher:

Published: 2018-07-27

Total Pages: 490

ISBN-13: 9781724395511

"This book, the outcome of twenty years of thought and ten years of writing, is certainly one of the most important contributions to the history of the human mind which the last decade has given us....We have no space to trace further the unfolding of these suggestive ideas, which are developed and illustrated with a brightness uncommon in books of serious purpose." -The World "The sympathetic spirit in which Mr. Allen treats a delicate and complex subject should have kindly consideration from those to whom the story of man's beliefs and guesses about the unseen makes appeal....A book which is the outcome of careful scholarly research." -The Daily Chronicle "One of the most ambitious and not the least successful of Mr. Allen's works....It is needless to say that the book is clever, showing marks of wide reading, ingenuity, and a certain verve - one might say dash - and that it attracts by the very reason that the writer is cumbered with few doubts or misgivings as to the soundness of his theories....The true student will profit much by Mr. Allen's erudition and his criticisms of the work of his predecessors." -The Times of London "A work of extraordinary interest and suggestion....It is on the whole a worthy treatment of an immensely interesting subject, a book for the intelligent general reader; one of the books that bristle with the always plausible, and frequently convincing, reason why." -H. G. Wells "It will be understood by every one that the subject Mr. Allen has chosen would be handled by him in a thoroughly scientific manner, and in absolute independence of all theological theories....The writer has collected an immense number of facts bearing on the development of religion, and has put them together in a most interesting way. The more educated part of the world is prepared for a work like this, and we have no doubt it will be read by many with the deepest interest." -The Scotsman CONTENTS PREFACE THE EVOLUTION OF THE IDEA OF GOD. CHAPTER I.--CHRISTIANITY AS A RELIGIOUS STANDARD. CHAPTER II.--RELIGION AND MYTHOLOGY. CHAPTER III.--THE LIFE OF THE DEAD. CHAPTER IV.--THE ORIGIN OF GODS. CHAPTER V.--SACRED STONES. CHAPTER VI.--SACRED STAKES. CHAPTER VIL--SACRED TREES. CHAPTER VIII.--THE GODS OF EGYPT. CHAPTER IX.--THE GODS OF ISRAEL. CHAPTER X.--THE RISE OF MONOTHEISM. CHAPTER XI.--HUMAN GODS. CHAPTER XII.--THE MANUFACTURE OF GODS. CHAPTER XIII.--GODS OF CULTIVATION. CHAPTER XIV.--CORN- AND WINE-GODS. CHAPTER XV.--SACRIFICE AND SACRAMENT. CHAPTER XVI.--THE DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT. CHAPTER XVII.--THE WORLD BEFORE CHRIST. CHAPTER XVIII.--THE GROWTH OF CHRISTIANITY. CHAPTER XIX.--SURVIVALS IN CHRISTENDOM. CHAPTER XX.--CONCLUSION.