ABSTRACT
Consequent upon the claim of religious psychologists that they were contributing to, or establishing a science of religion, Chapter 1 offers an examination of several major projects for the science of religion at the end of the nineteenth century. The chapter thus examines the works of authors like Max Müller, C.P. Tiele, Andrew Lang, as well Ernest Renan and other notable exponents of the French science des religions and outlines how they understood religion. As I will show, psychology played a fundamental role in the majority of these theories, such that by the turn of the century there was a general consensus in anthropology and in comparative religion that religion was essentially a thing of the mind.
