Religion in some form or another has always existed, has increased and developed, has grown and gained strength.
Therefore religion, all religions that have existed have filled some need, all religions that now exist do so because they fulfil some present use. From the way their believers cherish them the need is a great and urgent one. These religions are of vital use to their believers.
What is this great common need and yearning that all men have, and which, to men in sympathy with it, every religion fulfils?
Can it be that all men have a like need and that all religions have a common quality which serves that need?
Can it be possible that all races, the Englishman, the Negro, the Italian, the Russian, the Arab, the Chinaman, and the Pathan, have the same urgent necessity, and that their urgent necessity is answered by so many varying religions? If so, what is this necessity which religion alone can fill, what is this succour that religion alone can give? What is the use of religion?
These are some of the questions I ask, other men have asked the same—not many. The majority of men never ask themselves anything of the sort. They are born into a religion, they live in it more or less, they die in it. They may question its accuracy in one point or another, for each man to some extent makes his own faith; but nearly all men take their faith much as they find it and make the best of it. It does not occur to them to say, "Why should I want a religion at all? Why not go without?" They feel the necessity of it. Even the very few who reject their own faith almost always try for some other, something they hope will meet their necessity. They will prefer one faith to another. But they do not first consider why they want a faith at all. They do not ask, "Of what use is any religion?"
Yet this is in the main the subject of this book, these questions are the ones I ask, the questions to which I seek an answer. I will repeat them.
Why are all peoples, all men religious? Is the necessity a common necessity? If so, what is it?
Why does one form of religion appeal to one people and another to another people, while remaining hateful to all the rest?
Notwithstanding their common hate, have all religions a common secret? And if so, what is that?