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Excerpt from How to Read History But the traditional religionist seldom or never is consistent. Where practical life is concerned, he usually resembles the rest of us. He is as much taken up as the rest of us with the business of keeping alive and with the pursuit of fortune and success. He is as liable as the rest of us to become a nuisance to himself and others with his ailments and grievances. He may assent in so many words to the proposition that the present life is merely a preparation for eternity, but he does not act as if he believed it. His interest in sacred history is not noticeably greater than that of the Rationalist: it is often less. His interest in profane history is as great or as little as that of the average citizen. Judging by the criterion of behaviour, we are justified in concluding that traditional religion, for the majority of those who profess it, is more a convention than a conviction. That is not surprising; for the truths of traditional religion are in the nature of the case indemonstrable. Their chief effect, and indeed their chief function, throughout history has been to divert inquiry, which might otherwise be dangerous to the social order, into channels which, if fruitless, are at least harmless. 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.