Excerpt from The Origin and Development of Religious Belief, Vol. 1: Heathenism and Mosaism This work is the result of the study and thought of many years. Dissatisfied with the evidences com monly alleged for Christianity, I looked to see if the religion of the Incarnation did not rest on other and sounder grounds its claim for the allegiance of humanity. And it seemed to me, that if God created man, and implanted in his soul certain spiritual instincts and ten dencies, a revelation from God on which a religion may be built must meet and satisfy these instincts and tendencies. Consequently, the first step to be taken in deciding whether a revelation be true or not is to examine what are the religious instincts and tendencies of mankind. And then to see whether Christianity does answer to these needs. 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.