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CONFLUENCE OF OPPOSITES.
. OR COMPARATIVE RELIGION.
FIRST LECTURE.
General Survey. Comparative Religion is a science. It is that department of rational knowlege which seeks to ascertain the views of different religions to reconcile their teachings to one another, collecting, sorting and interpreting ancient lore to getat truth. It proceeds upon a policy of criticism that is constructive in its ultimate nature, in so far, at least, as it seeks to find out the element of truth behind every form of belief, though, naturally, a great deal of destructive work is to be performed in the beginning to get rid of the cobwebs of superstition and error adhering to diverse faiths.
The field of enquiry is vast and almost unexplored. Indeed, no one is known to have ever approached the subject in a scientific spirit. There is one known work of the fourteenth century, termed Sarva Darshana Sangraha, but it is neither scientißc in nature nor exhaustive in scope, its author (Madhava Acharya) contenting himself with a general discussion of a few abstract points raised by the diverse schools of Indian metaphy
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