ABSTRACT
Religions, like other racial differences, have been shaped by the conditions of environment, manner of life, and social organisation, in those regions in which they have grown up. Of much in the life of primitive man, whether in the remote childhood of humanity or today, that may be said; and it was in feelings of this kind that religion had some of its deepest roots. The influence of environment and occupation can be clearly seen in those religions of which we have actual record. A nomad pastoral existence has usually been supposed to represent an earlier stage of development than a settled agricultural life. In all ages, therefore, the official guardians of religion have tended to oppose, as a falling off from divinely appointed procedure and revelation, any admission of new truth or any modification in accordance with a change of feeling.
