F. Max Müller’s Natural Religion contains twenty lectures in the form Müller had prepared them for delivery in the University of Glasgow in 1888. Longmans, Green, & Co. published the lectures in 1899.

Müller outlines the basic groundwork for all study of religion in his first course of Gifford Lectures, which serves as the foundation for the three courses of lectures to follow. His chief aim is to define religion, to determine what ideas can be properly considered religious, and to examine, in historical context, the materials and resources at the disposal of anyone wishing to study the origin, development and in some cases decline of religious ideas. In the successive lectures, Müller discusses what he calls the three ‘branches’ of natural religion, namely, physical, anthropological, and psychological religion.