Let us start without preconceptions. Of course, we all have some preconceptions about what religion is or should be, and how it got to be the way it is now. Here we delve into the distant past to see whether we can recognize what appears to have happened. We freely admit that in our self-conscious age, this is nearly impossible.

I do not write to prove or disprove any particular theory about religion. I have ideas about them, which I talk about toward the end of this book. However, I also have a, doubtless, Romantic conviction that one of the things historians should be doing is recounting what is known, usually in chronological order, to see whether we can sniff and feel the force of events, of ceremonies, and of words. My epigraphs are drawn especially from modern studies of religious life; I do not mean to endorse the views expressed by others, but I bring them in to show the continuities and discontinuities in human experience.