F. Max Müller’s second round of Gifford Lectures, delivered before the University of Glasgow in the beginning of 1890, builds on the introductory material laid out in his first course, Natural Religion, now taking as his focus Physical Religion. Müller defines physical religion as a worship of the powers of nature.

Humanism fails to withstand the radical secularization of the humanist tradition. These lectures discuss the historical role of religion and religious knowledge in society, the need to study the phenomenon of religion as a source of cultural knowledge, and the potential of spiritual life to operate as an instrument of cultural change.

In Beyond Ideology, Ninian Smart faces up to the reality that in the world of humans there exist different Beyonds, or at the very least there are different maps of the world hereafter. From this it becomes clear that the problem of the plurality of religions cannot be left unaddressed. Smart’s consideration of the plurality of religions is completed in a much broader perspective than is usual.