her varied life, and that the Celt looked for his other-world either
beneath the earth, with her rivers, lakes, and seas, or in the islands on
the distant horizon, where earth and sky met. This predominance of the
earth in religion was in thorough keeping with the intensity of religion
as a factor in his daily pursuits. It was this intensity that gave the
Druids at some time or other in the history of the Western Celts the
power which Caesar and others assign to them. The whole people of the
Gauls, even with their military aristocracy, were extremely devoted to
religious ideas, though these led to the inhumanity of human sacrifices.
At one time their sense of the reality of the other-world was so great,
that they believed that loans contracted in this world would be repaid
there, and practical belief could not go much further than that. All
these considerations tend to show how important it is, in the comparative
study of religions, to investigate each religion in its whole
sociological and geographical environment as well as in the etymological
meaning of its terms.

In conclusion, the writer hopes that this brief sketch, which is based on
an independent study of the main evidence for the religious ideas and
practices of the Celtic peoples, will help to interest students of
religion in the dominant modes of thought which from time immemorial held
sway in these lands of the West of Europe, and which in folk-lore and
custom occasionally show themselves even in the midst of our highly
developed and complex civilisation of to-day. The thought of early man
on the problems of his being--for after all his superstitions reveal
thought--deserve respect, for in his efforts to think he was trying to
grope towards the light.