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The Science of Religion in Britain, 1860–1915 Victorian Literature and Culture Series Jerome J The Science of Religion in Britain, 1860–1915 Victorian Literature and Culture Series Jerome J. McGann and Herbert F. Tucker, Editors The Science of Religion in Britain, 1860–1915 Marjorie Wheeler-Barclay University of Virginia Press | Charlottesville and London University of Virginia Press ∫ 2010 by the Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper First published 2010 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Wheeler-Barclay, Marjorie, 1952– The science of religion in Britain, 1860–1915 / Marjorie Wheeler-Barclay. p. cm. — (Victorian literature and culture series) Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. isbn 978-0-8139-3010-7 (cloth : alk. paper) — isbn 978-0-8139-3051-0 (e-book) 1. Religion—Study and teaching—Great Britain—History—19th century. 2. Religion historians—Great Britain—History—19th century. 3. Religion—Study and teaching—Great Britain—History—20th century. 4. Religion historians—Great Britain—History—20th century. I. Title. bl41.w467 2010 306.60941%09034—dc22 2010007703 For Daryl and Reese This page intentionally left blank Contents Acknowledgments ix Introduction 1 1. The Study of Religion before 1860 17 2. Friedrich Max Müller The Annunciation of a New Science 37 3. Edward B. Tylor The Forging of an Anthropological Orthodoxy 71 4. Andrew Lang The Antipositivist Critique 104 5. William Robertson Smith A New Departure 140 6. James G. Frazer The Orthodoxy Monumentalized 181 7. Jane Ellen Harrison The Redefinition of Religion 215 Conclusion 243 Notes 257 Bibliography 289 Index 305 This page intentionally left blank Acknowledgments In the course of writing this study I have received essential support— intellectual, financial, and emotional—from many individuals and institu- tions. It is a pleasure to attempt here to acknowledge some of these debts. T. W. Heyck guided and advised me through the first stages of this project many years ago, and his support and thoughtful criticisms were invaluable. Many friends and colleagues encouraged me to persevere at times when I doubted that this project would ever come to completion. I particularly wish to thank Trent Foley, Carl Hester, Heidi Kunz, Jamie Rohrer, Melinda Wheeler, and Sarah Wheeler. My colleagues in the Department of History at Randolph College—Brad Geisert, Gerry Sherayko, John d’Entremont, and the late Margaret Pertzoff—have extended support, friendship, and encour- agement over more than twenty years. Original research for this study was generously funded by the Alumnae of Northwestern University, and I am grateful to Randolph College for profes- sional development grants and sabbatical leaves that allowed me to continue the research for this book. Thanks also to librarians and archivists at North- western University, Randolph College, the British Library, the Bodleian Li- brary, Trinity College and Newnham College in Cambridge, the Pitt Rivers Museum, the Cambridge University Library, Senate House Library at the University of London, and the University of St. Andrews. I wish to thank the following institutions for permission to quote from material held in their collections: the Principal and Fellows, Newnham Col- lege, Cambridge; the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford; Bodleian Library, University of Oxford; Archives, Imperial College London; and the x | Acknowledgments Syndics of Cambridge University Library. Portions of chapter 5 were pre- viously published in ‘‘Victorian Evangelicalism and the Sociology of Religion: The Career of William Robertson Smith,’’ which appeared in Journal of the History of Ideas 54, no. 1 (January 1993), copyright 1993, the Journal of the History of Ideas, Inc., published by the Johns Hopkins University Press. Thanks also go to my editors at the University of Virginia Press, Cathie Brettschneider and Mark Mones, for their support and good advice. My greatest debt is to my husband, Daryl, who has always demonstrated serene faith in my ability to complete this book even when my own con- fidence wavered. The Science of Religion in Britain, 1860–1915 This page intentionally left blank Introduction Yet how much more safe it is, as well as more fruitful, to look for the main confirmation of a religion in its intrinsic correspondence with urgent wants of human nature, in its profound necessity! Differing reli- gions will then be found to have much in common. Matthew Arnold, ‘‘A Persian Passion Play’’ All the great religions of the world historically considered, are rightly the objects of deep reverence and sympathy. Every community met to worship the highest Good . carries me along in its main current, and if there were not reasons against my following such an inclination, I should go to church or chapel constantly for the sake of the delightful emotions of fellowship which come over me in religious assemblies. George Eliot, Letter to John Walter Cross, 1873 Loss of faith in traditional Christian beliefs and the accompanying erosion of the intellectual and cultural authority of the churches have long been central problems in the history of Victorian Britain. Historians have approached the topic from several angles, examining the complex causes and sources of un- belief, pursuing an understanding of its impact through biographical studies of famous ‘‘doubters,’’ and more recently, turning to the investigation of surro- gate religions such as spiritualism, eugenics, and the Comtean ‘‘religion of humanity.’’ One problem that has so far attracted little attention, however, is the relationship between this cultural upheaval and the creation of a distinct field of discourse dedicated to the scientific study of religious practices and belief systems as human institutions meeting definite social and psychological needs. This scholarly enterprise, variously known as the ‘‘science of religion,’’ 2 | Introduction ‘‘comparative religions,’’ or the ‘‘history of religions,’’ flourished in Britain from about 1860 up to the early years of World War I. The notion that religion was an appropriate subject for disinterested scholarly investigation was not, of course, original to the nineteenth century. Nevertheless, the period after 1860 witnessed an unprecedented burst of activity in this area as the first attempts were made to create a coherent field of study that would treat religion purely as an element in human cultures. This new field was both a response to and a reflection of the sense of religious crisis that troubled so many Victorians. This study seeks to illuminate the connections between Victorian culture and the science of religion through an examination of the lives and work of six individuals—Friedrich Max Müller, Edward B. Tylor, Andrew Lang, William Robertson Smith, James G. Frazer, and Jane Ellen Harrison—all of whom were major contributors to this new field. Other authors who contributed significantly to the field include Herbert Spencer, Edward Clodd, J. F. McLen- nan, John Lubbock, and R. R. Marett. The science of religion did not achieve the status of an autonomous academic discipline during the nineteenth cen- tury, and these figures are part of the history of several different fields, includ- ing anthropology, sociology, classics, and Oriental studies. Like much of Vic- torian thought, the science of religion drew contributions from outside as well as within the universities. Unlike many of their twentieth- and twenty-first- century successors, these scholars did not confine their investigations to any single cultural tradition, although Max Müller and Robertson Smith spe- cialized in ‘‘Oriental’’ religions while Harrison, Frazer, and Lang began from their interests in classics. But an exclusive focus on one tradition would not have served their purpose, which was to arrive at some understanding of religion as a unitary phenomenon expressing pervasive (though not neces- sarily permanent) human needs. Theirs was a truly engaged scholarship. Though they concentrated atten- tion on non-Christian religions, especially so-called primitive ones, their work was intended as a vital contribution to the contemporary debate on Chris- tianity.∞ Their scholarly interests reflected the questions and anxieties gener- ated by the intensity of religious debate that surrounded them, and this study argues that their work is best regarded not as a cause of, but as a response to, the sense of cultural disorientation that was engendered by religious turmoil. Furthermore, despite the assumptions of many Victorians, as well as later observers, that any enterprise described as ‘‘scientific’’ must be hostile to religion, the fact is that the science of religion was not purely or even mainly antireligious, though contributors to it were often at odds with what many of their contemporaries would have regarded as Christian orthodoxy. Introduction | 3 During the first half of the nineteenth century, Britain’s educated classes were united in some degree by a religious and moral consensus based on the varieties of British Protestantism. To be sure, religion also provided a fertile source of social and political conflict as a newly self-conscious middle class, many of whose members were Dissenters, launched a series of assaults on the powers and privileges of the established Church while adherents of the Ox- ford Movement sought to counter the influence of the Evangelicals. Broadly speaking, the first half of the Victorian era was marked by sporadic religious conflict that, while often quite intense, was basically sectarian in character. Although it was not
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