PREFACE.
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more conscious than its author. I have represented myself towards its close (p. 173) as having done no more than touched the fringe of a great subject. Should circumstances permit, and sufficient encouragement be received, the sketch of Ancient Religions here put forth may not improbably receive at some future time such an expansion as may render it more porportionate to the vast matter of which it treats. It is impossible to make acknoAvledgments to all those I have consulted with advantage. But
whose works
my
obligations to Professor Max Mtiller's dissertations upon the Vedas, to Dr. Martin Haug's " Essays on the Parsee and to Mr. Dennis's " Cities and Cemeteries of Religion," " Etruria seem to require special recognition. Apart from " the works of these writers, three of the " Religions could not have been so much as attempted. If I have ventured sometimes, though rarely, to differ from their conclusions, it has been with diffidence and reluctance.