The Science of Religion in Britain, 1860–1915 (review)

Marjorie Wheeler-Barclay’s The Science of Religion in Britain, 1860–1915 names the two antagonists in what is certainly one of the most important cultural conflagrations of the Victorian period. However, it is not science versus religion or even science and religion but rather the science of religion that constitutes the focus of Wheeler-Barclay’s inquiry. The “science of religion” (sometimes known as “comparative religions”) is, as the author notes, “the scientific study of religious practices and belief systems as human institutions meeting definite social and psychological needs” (1). It is, then, if not an unexamined, certainly an under-examined aspect of the late Victorian cultural landscape, and this book performs a valuable service in both adding to our understanding of this field of discourse and, even more importantly, reorienting that understanding in illuminating ways. Through an examination of the lives and works of six prominent scholars in this burgeoning field, Wheeler-Barclay successfully and persuasively argues that the science of religion is best understood not as one of the many causes of the Victorian crisis of religion, but rather as a complex, thoughtful, and variegated response to that crisis. When seen in this light, Wheeler-Barclay’s study of the science of religion also constitutes an important contribution to recent scholarly work that has sought to complicate the standard historical narrative that views the history of the period as one of steady, relentless, ever-increasing secularization.

At the heart of the book are six chapters exploring the lives and works of scholars who were crucial to the founding, development, and popularity of the science of religion: Max Müller, Edward B. Tylor, Andrew Lang, William Robertson Smith, James Frazer, and Jane Ellen Harrison. Each of these chapters follows the same basic but effective pattern. An anecdotal opening highlighting the scholar’s distinctive contribution to the field is followed by a brief biographical sketch that emphasizes a crucial formative influence on that scholar’s work—for example, Max Müller’s training in comparative philology, or William Robertson Smith’s tumultuous relationship with the Free Church of Scotland. The central part of each chapter is devoted to a detailed discussion and assessment of each scholar’s distinctive contributions to the science of religion through a close reading of important primary texts and lucid explication of the important ideas and theories they contain. Each chapter concludes with a survey of the reception of the scholar’s work, both at the time of its publication and in subsequent years and decades. This fascinating set of scholarly portraits is preceded by an introduction that, among other things, grounds the reader in the field of discourse that came to be known as the science of religion, situating it in relation to the emerging discipline of anthropology and stressing its interdisciplinary character. The Introduction is followed by a brief contextual chapter that discusses the study of religion prior to 1860, focusing primarily on the work of David Hume, Auguste Comte, and Herbert Spencer, all of whom set the stage for the subsequent work initiated by Müller and Tylor.

The strengths of this book are numerous, not the least of which is the fact that is meticulously researched and very well written. Wheeler-Barclay fashions a coherent and intriguing narrative about the science of religion and avoids the potential pitfall of presenting chapters that are isolated and unconnected with each other. Instead, the book assiduously exposes and explores the connections among the scholars so that, as one reads, a sense of the vitality of intellectual exchange—with all its ebb and flow, thrust and counterthrust, positions advanced and then revised, new directions staked out—is clearly communicated. The Conclusion to the book also serves a valuable function in providing a succinct and effective overview of the contours of this exchange, which stretched over several decades. Given the interdisciplinary nature of the field, Wheeler-Barclay’s necessary excursions into disciplines such as comparative philology, the higher criticism...