Only within recent years have systematic attempts been made to classify religions on the basis of impersonal objective study.  Throughout all times men have instinctively set up their own religion as the only true one, besides which all others are designated simply as false—­a very natural distinction, but one which is too naive for science, as well as one that takes into account subjective or personal values which are not to be considered in an objective comparison and analysis.  The linguistic basis was first employed by Mueller, with the result that religions were placed in the category of evolutionary accompaniments of the other mental possessions and of the physical qualities of genetically connected peoples.  Thus the nations of Europe that branched out in all directions from very nearly the same sources possessed common linguistic characters and somewhat similar creeds.  The Sanskrit-speaking races were the original Brahmins and Buddhists.  Ancestor worship is an accompaniment of the peculiar languages spoken by eastern Mongolian peoples.  And although the correlation specified is by no means invariable, because a race of one stock can readily accept the religion of a neighbor or of a conqueror, yet much is gained through the introduction of the idea of evolutionary relationships.

A more logical classification frankly adopts the genetic method and clearly recognizes the direct effects of cultural and intellectual attainments upon the way a religious system becomes formulated.  In such an arrangement, similar to that of Jastrow, religions can be classed as those of savagery, of barbarism, of advanced culture, and of civilization.  Among the first named, notably those of Polynesian and African tribes, beliefs in diversified ghosts and spirits bulk largely, and every moving thing, be it a river or a cloud or a tree or animal, is held to be animated by an invisible conscious genius; the spirits reside in everything, as well as in the great unknown beyond.  Above these in the scale are the religions of so-called primitive cults, more elaborate and formalized in the ancient beliefs of Egypt and Assyria, but still below those of advanced culture, which make up a third group.  The fourth class includes the religions which tend to be coextensive with life, and which enjoin the higher harmony of practical and theoretical conceptions.  Taking Christianity as an example, the contrast with the beliefs of savagery brings out clearly the nature of progressive development.  Here religious thought is no longer esoteric, confined to a chosen sect like the Levites among the Hebrews or the shaman and medicine-man among the American Indians; nor is religious observance restricted to the innermost shrine of the tabernacle or sacred dwelling, accessible to few or only one.  It comes to be regarded as something in which each and every individual can participate, and a personal possession that has a direct part in determining all forms of human life and action.  This is another