Outlines of Primitive Belief Among the Indo-European Races (Classic Reprint)

Book excerpt: Excerpt from Outlines of Primitive Belief Among the Indo-European Races There are two roads along which students are now travelling towards (we may reasonably hope) the same goal of fuller knowledge touching Prehistoric Belief. One way is that of Comparative Mythology, which has become so favourite a pursuit with the present generation. In this method the myth is taken for the centre-point of the enquiry, and - just as a specimen in natural history may be - it is traced through all the varieties and sub-species that are to be discovered in various lands. The other method, which is an historical rather than a scientific one, may be called the study of the History of Belief. In it our eyes are for the time being fixed upon a single race of men; and it is the relationship of these people to the world by which they are surrounded that we seek to know. The following outlines of early Aryan} belief belong to the class of studies, which are dis tinctly historical in character. They are not designed to establish any new theory of the origin of belief among mankind; nor are they meant to deal with theories which relate to creeds other than the Indo European. They are essentially a record of facts. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.