Editing Max Müller (section)

===Gifford Lectures===
[[File:Friedrich Max Müller, Vanity Fair, 1875-02-06.jpg|thumb|1875 [[Vanity Fair (British magazine)|''Vanity Fair'']] caricature of Müller confirming that, at the age of fifty-one, with numerous honours, he was one of the truly notable "Men of the Day".]]
In 1888, Müller was appointed Gifford Lecturer at the [[University of Glasgow]]. These [[Gifford Lectures]] were the first in an annual series, given at several Scottish universities, that has continued to the present day. Over the next four years, Müller gave four series of lectures.<ref name="gifford_bio" /> The titles and order of the lectures were as follows:<ref name="gifford4">Müller, F. Max (1895), ''Theosophy or Psychological Religion.'' London: Longmans, Green and Co., pp.89–90.</ref>

# '''Natural Religion'''. This first course of lectures was intended as purely introductory, and had for its object a definition of Natural Religion in its widest sense.
# '''Physical Religion'''. This second course of lectures was intended to show how different nations had arrived at a belief in something infinite behind the finite, in something invisible behind the visible, in many unseen agents or gods of nature, until they reached a belief in one god above all those gods. In short, a history of the discovery of the infinite in nature.
# '''Anthropological Religion'''. This third course was intended to show how different nations arrived at a belief in a [[soul]], how they named its various faculties, and what they imagined about its fate after death.
# '''Theosophy or Psychological Religion'''. The fourth and last course of lectures was intended to examine the relation between God and the soul ("these two Infinites"), including the ideas that some of the principal nations of the world have formed concerning this relation. Real religion, Müller asserted, is founded on a true perception of the ''relation'' of the soul to God and of God to the soul; Müller wanted to prove that this was true, not only as a postulate, but as an historical fact. The original title of the lectures was 'Psychological Religion' but Müller felt compelled to add 'Theosophy' to it. Müller's final Gifford Lecture is significant in interpreting his work broadly, as he situates his philological and historical research within a [[Hermeticism|Hermetic]] and [[mystical]] theological project.{{sfnp|Josephson-Storm|2017|pp=108–110}}