Anthropological Religion, F. Max Müller’s third course of Gifford Lectures, concerns the study of that historical manifestation of natural religion founded upon the nature of man; more precisely, upon the discovery of some divine or infinite character within man, beyond the material body. Through the comparative study of conceptions of the soul and the afterlife, Müller considers instances of ancestor worship as likely the earliest indication of humankind’s recognition of something not merely human, something not far removed from the divine, in man. This idea, which developed spontaneously and, according to Müller, universally and inevitably, is brought to its fullest and truest realization in Christianity, in the human and divine natures of Jesus Christ, who relates to the Supreme Being as ‘Father’.

KEY WORDS: Human nature, Soul, Immortality, Natural world, Ancestor worship, Supreme Being, Atonement, Christianity