Assuming, with the Apostle Paul, that each religion has come providentially, as a method by which different races "should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him and find him," it attempts to show how each may be a step in the religious progress of the races, and "a schoolmaster to bring men to Christ." It is bound, however, to abstain from such inferences until it has accurately ascertained all the facts.
Its first problem is to learn what each system contains; it may then go on, and endeavor to generalize from its facts.
Comparative Theology is, therefore, as yet in its infancy.

The same tendency in this century, which has produced the sciences of Comparative Anatomy, Comparative Geography, and Comparative Philology, is now creating this new science of Comparative Theology.[1] It will be to any special theology as Comparative Anatomy is to any special anatomy, Comparative Geography to any special geography, or Comparative Philology to the study of any particular language.

It may be called a science, since it consists in the study of the facts of human history, and their relation to each other.

It does not dogmatize: it observes.

It deals only with phenomena,--single phenomena, or facts; grouped phenomena, or laws.
Several valuable works, bearing more or less directly on Comparative Theology, have recently appeared in Germany, France, and England.