90. Stefan Von Czobel “The Development of Religious Concepts as the Basis of a Progressive Religion”

In this book, a man who has thoroughly studied natural science and cultural history in their present form gives a comprehensive account of the development of religious concepts in the course of human evolution. Reference is made to two sources of religious life: to the sensations and ideas derived from external sensory experience, which point the still undeveloped human being to the deeper forces of the world, and to the inner spiritual forces of man, which lead him through spiritual deepening to thoughts about the divine. A rare knowledge of the various religious systems makes it possible for the author to show these two sources in all world views relevant to the Occident and its culture and to trace their influence to the outermost branches of religious life. What Paul Asmus endeavored to describe from the point of view of the German idealistic world view in his witty book "Die indo-germanische Religion in den Hauptpunkten ihrer Entwicklung" (Halle 1875), von Czobel seeks to obtain in a real scientific manner on the basis of modern cultural studies, namely the family tree of religions. Anyone looking for a deeper inner life will find in this work a sum of scientific results and explanations that are suitable for fertilizing this inner life. He can also turn his interest to the book if, like the writer of these lines, he has arrived at other views on the basis of inner experience than those which Czobel identifies as the core of the development of religion to date, and to which he attaches a mission for the present and the near future of religious life.