ABSTRACT
I n all early religions, priests are marked off from other worshippers, partly by what they do, and partly by what they may not d o ; and there is so much agreement between the different religions on both points, that we obviously have to do with the effects of a cause or causes operating uniformly in all parts of the world. At the same time there are certain features of the priesthood which, though they recur in various religions, are not uniformly present in a ll: they are not essential parts of the antique conception of priesthood. It is clear, therefore, that any general theory on the subject must account for both the uniformity in certain characteristics and the want of uniformity in the other characteristics. The general cause which a theory postulates must be such that its operation would produce the complete uniformity of the one class and the only partial uniformity of the other class of features.
