The field of religion being as wide as this, it is manifestly
impossible that I should pretend to cover it. My lectures must
be limited to a fraction of the subject. And, although it would
indeed be foolish to set up an abstract definition of religion's
essence, and then proceed to defend that definition against all
comers, yet this need not prevent me from taking my own narrow
view of what religion shall consist in FOR THE PURPOSE OF THESE
LECTURES, or, out of the many meanings of the word, from choosing
the one meaning in which I wish to interest you particularly, and
proclaiming arbitrarily that when I say "religion" I mean THAT.
This, in fact, is what I must do, and I will now preliminarily
seek to mark out the field I choose.
One way to mark it out easily is to say what aspects of the
subject we leave out. At the outset we are struck by one great
partition which divides the religious field. On the one side of
it lies institutional, on the other personal religion. As M. P.
Sabatier says, one branch of religion keeps the divinity, another
keeps man most in view. Worship and sacrifice, procedures for
working on the dispositions of the deity, theology and ceremony
and ecclesiastical organization, are the essentials of religion
in the institutional branch.
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