Prof. FLINDERS PETRIE. F.R.S.
THE RELIGION OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA, Dr. THEOPHILUS G. PINCHES.
PANTHEISM
Its Story and Significance
BY J. ALLANSON PICTON
LONDON
1905
CONTENTS
CHAP.
FOREWORD
I. PRE-CHRISTIAN PANTHEISM
II. POST-CHRISTIAN PANTHEISM
III. MODERN PANTHEISM
AFTERWORD
PANTHEISM
FOREWORD.
[Sidenote: Pantheism not Sectarian or even Racial.]
Pantheism differs from the systems of belief constituting the main
religions of the world in being comparatively free from any limits of
period, climate, or race. For while what we roughly call the Egyptian
Religion, the Vedic Religion, the Greek Religion, Buddhism, and others
of similar fame have been necessarily local and temporary, Pantheism has
been, for the most part, a dimly discerned background, an esoteric
significance of many or all religions, rather than a "denomination" by
itself. The best illustration of this characteristic of Pantheism is the
catholicity of its great prophet Spinoza. For he felt so little
antagonism to any Christian sect, that he never urged any member of a
church to leave it, but rather encouraged his humbler friends, who
sought his advice, to make full use of such spiritual privileges as
they appreciated most. He could not, indeed, content himself with the
fragmentary forms of any sectarian creed. But in the few writings which
he made some effort to adapt to the popular understanding, he seems to
think it possible that the faith of Pantheism might some day leaven all
religions alike.
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