SOURCE: "Religion: Its Methods and Purpose," in Vivekananda: The Yogas and Other Works, Revised Edition, Ramakrishana-Vivekananda Center, 1953, pp. 767-75.

In the following essay, which was originally delivered as a lecture in England in 1896, Vivekananda discusses varieties of approaches to God, and evaluates the multiplicity of world religions.

In studying the religions of the world we generally find two methods of procedure. The one is from God to man.. That is to say, we have the Semitic group of religions, in which the idea of God comes almost from the very first, and, strangely enough, without any idea of the soul. It is very remarkable that the ancient Hebrews, until a very recent period in their history, never evolved a definite idea of the soul. Man was composed of certain mental and material particles, and that was all. With death everything ended. But on the other hand, there was...