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We shall meet, in the course of this work, many different definitions that have at one time or another been given to religion. Some were assigned from the point of view of physics, others from that of metaphysics, others from that of morals, almost none from that of sociology. And yet, upon closer scrutiny, the notion of a social bond between man and the powers superior to him, but resembling him, is precisely the point in which all religious conceptions are at one. Man becomes truly religious, in our judgment, only when above the human society in which he lives he superimposes in his scheme of the world another society, more powerful and more cultured, a universal and, so to speak, a cosmic society. The sphere of sociality, which is one of the characteristics of humanity, must be enlarged till it reaches to the stars. Sociality is the firm foundation of the religious sentiment, and a religious being might be defined as a being disposed to be sociable, not only with all living creatures with whom experience makes him acquainted, but also with the creatures of thought with whom he peoples the world.

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Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.