The Science of Religion in Britain, 1860-1915

Introduction

Introduction Yet how much more safe it is, as well as more fruitful, to look for the main confirmation of a religion in its intrinsic correspondence with urgent wants of human nature, in its profound necessity! Differing religions will then be found to have much in common. Matthew Arnold, ‘‘A Persian Passion Play’’ All the great religions of the world historically considered, are rightly the objects of deep reverence and sympathy. . . . Every community met to worship the highest Good . . . carries me along in its main current, and if there were not reasons against my following such an inclination, I should go to church or chapel constantly for the sake of the delightful emotions of fellowship which come over me in religious assemblies. George Eliot, Letter to John Walter Cross, 1873 Loss of faith in traditional Christian beliefs and the accompanying erosion of the intellectual and cultural authority of the churches have long been central problems in the history of Victorian Britain. Historians have approached the topic from several angles, examining the complex causes and sources of unbelief , pursuing an understanding of its impact through biographical studies of famous ‘‘doubters,’’ and more recently, turning to the investigation of surrogate religions such as spiritualism, eugenics, and the Comtean ‘‘religion of humanity.’’ One problem that has so far attracted little attention, however, is the relationship between this cultural upheaval and the creation of a distinct field of discourse dedicated to the scientific study of religious practices and belief systems as human institutions meeting definite social and psychological needs. This scholarly enterprise, variously known as the ‘‘science of religion,’’ 2 | Introduction ‘‘comparative religions,’’ or the ‘‘history of religions,’’ flourished in Britain from about 1860 up to the early years of World War I. The notion that religion was an appropriate subject for disinterested scholarly investigation was not, of course, original to the nineteenth century. Nevertheless, the period after 1860 witnessed an unprecedented burst of activity in this area as the first attempts were made to create a coherent field of study that would treat religion purely as an element in human cultures. This new field was both a response to and a reflection of the sense of religious crisis that troubled so many Victorians. This study seeks to illuminate the connections between Victorian culture and the science of religion through an examination of the lives and work of six individuals—Friedrich Max Müller, Edward B. Tylor, Andrew Lang, William Robertson Smith, James G. Frazer, and Jane Ellen Harrison—all of whom were major contributors to this new field. Other authors who contributed significantly to the field include Herbert Spencer, Edward Clodd, J. F. McLennan , John Lubbock, and R. R. Marett. The science of religion did not achieve the status of an autonomous academic discipline during the nineteenth century , and these figures are part of the history of several different fields, including anthropology, sociology, classics, and Oriental studies. Like much of Victorian thought, the science of religion drew contributions from outside as well as within the universities. Unlike many of their twentieth- and twenty-firstcentury successors, these scholars did not confine their investigations to any single cultural tradition, although Max Müller and Robertson Smith specialized in ‘‘Oriental’’ religions while Harrison, Frazer, and Lang began from their interests in classics. But an exclusive focus on one tradition would not have served their purpose, which was to arrive at some understanding of religion as a unitary phenomenon expressing pervasive (though not necessarily permanent) human needs. Theirs was a truly engaged scholarship. Though they concentrated attention on non-Christian religions, especially so-called primitive ones, their work was intended as a vital contribution to the contemporary debate on Christianity .∞ Their scholarly interests reflected the questions and anxieties generated by the intensity of religious debate that surrounded them, and this study argues that their work is best regarded not as a cause of, but as a response to, the sense of cultural disorientation that was engendered by religious turmoil. Furthermore, despite the assumptions of many Victorians, as well as later observers, that any enterprise described as ‘‘scientific’’ must be hostile to religion, the fact is that the science of religion was not purely or even mainly antireligious, though contributors to it were often at odds with what many of their contemporaries would have regarded as Christian orthodoxy. Introduction | 3 During the first half of the nineteenth century...