The Classification of Religions Different Methods, Their Advantages and Disadvantages Classic Reprint

Excerpt from The Classification of Religions: Different Methods, Their Advantages and Disadvantages

D. Classifications from racial relationships and from actually traceable mutual historical influences (including linguistic and other genealogical schemes).

All of these methods of grouping (even those under A) have their value, often a very great one. They only over step their province when they claim to be the sole legitimate method or even the best method. They can at most do what it is possible for a classification to do, viz., illustrate a certain general phase, relationship, tendency, etc. Each must in the nature of the case omit the special advantages of the others; yet through all, the general character of the subject may be seen, just as one can see and recognize the same landscape from different points of view, while in each new standpoint we get new and otherwise impossible impressions. He will know it best who is at pains to view it from all the available points. So in the study of religions, the most varied views should be most welcome, so long as they are not partial, overdrawn, or fantastically colored. Only by various classifications and methods of study is it possible to bring out the manifoldness of the great idea.

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