Religion is the devotion of man to the Deity, embracing his hope of receiving Divine grace in this life and in the next. It includes also his submission to the established moral order and the practice of certain acts of homage to the Deity, to saints, and to angels. Religion is a virtue, and its lack paralyzes man’s efforts for happiness and perfection. It is found in a crude form in lower religions, but even in these it carries the germ of filial affection for the Deity.

Man does not acquire his religious beliefs independently, as an exercise of his own reason or by direct intuition; rather he comes to know them through the authoritative teaching of his parents and elders and by the observance of certain sacred rites and customs. He also learns them from the scriptures of his religion and from the preaching of his clergy.

The study of religion grew into an academic discipline in the 19th century, when methods from history, philology, literature, psychology, sociology, anthropology, and economics were brought to bear on the subject. Despite the rigor applied to this new field, no tight definition of religion has yet been settled upon, and scholars tend to disagree about the best method for studying religion. Some take a functional approach, such as Emile Durkheim’s, who defines it as whatever system of practices unite people into a moral community (whether or not this system involves belief in unusual realities). Other scholars use a substantive definition, such as that of Matthew Arnold, who defined it as “the cultivation of the soul’s higher sentiments.” Edward Burnett Tylor, however, pointed out that narrowing the meaning of religion in this way would exclude many peoples from its category, and so be inaccurate.