Excerpt from Lectures on the History of Religions, Vol. 1 The volumes have a certain unity within themselves. The first, after an introductory lecture, deals with very widespread or very ancient religions, other than those which more immediately affected the world when Christianity was born. Vol. II. Treats precisely of these latter religions; Vol. III., of certain great stages in the history of Catholicism, with its Jewish background; Vol. IV., of the fate of such religious movements as separated themselves from the main current; of the great post-christian religion of Mohammed; of the modern destinies of the third great Semitic religion, Judaism. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.