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32
GENERAL SURVEY
Our survey of the principal religions of the world is now finished, and my only regret is that it is not as No account is taken complete as I should like to see it. here of the ancient religions that are now extinct, the religions of Babylonia, Assyria and Egypt which are expected to throw much light on the situation, The reason for this is that our knowledge of these ancient but extinct religions is so scanty and comes from sources so misleading and unreliable that it is much better to leave their elucidation to the future generation of better qualified researchers than to start on a course of error and misapprehension from the very outset. I shall, however, deal with some of these ancient cults in a subsequent lecture, so far as I can safely go.
Of the minor schisms and cults and other speculative miscellany, e.g., New-Platonism, Pythagorianism. etc., etc., I shall purposely say nothing, since we already possess sufficient material to form a basis for scientific comparison in our subsequent lectures and since time I have does not permit our going into minute details, said nothing about Charvakism, because I propose to deal with it under the head of Materialism later.
Our survey of the principal religions of the world being now complete, it only remains to ascertain their common features of resemblance as well as their striking differences and disharmonies. The following points will be found to be common to all religions
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