The following excerpt is Eliade's list of questions that the historian of religion has to answer, and that belongs uniquely to the historian of religion. "To understand these difficulties better, let us come now to the subject of the present study: the symbolism of the "Centre". A historian of religions has the right to ask us: What do you mean by these terms? What symbols are in question? Among which peoples and in what cultures? And he might add: You are not unaware that the epoch of Tylor, of Mannhardt and Frazer is over and done with; it is no longer allowable today to speak of myths and rites "in general", or of a uniformity in primitive man's reactions to Nature. Those generalisations are abstractions, like those of "primitive man" in general. What is concrete is the religious phenomenon manifested in history and through history. And, from the simple fact that it is manifested in history, it is limited, it is conditioned by history. What meaning, then, for the history of religions could there be in such a formula as, for instance, the ritual approach to immortality? We must first specify what kind of immortality is in question; for we cannot be sure, a priori, that humanity as a whole has had, spontaneously, the intuition of immortality or even the desire for it. You speak of the "symbolism of the Centre"-what right have you, as a historian of religions, to do so? Can one so lightly generalise? One ought rather to begin by asking oneself: in which culture, and following upon what historical events, did the religious notion of the "Centre", or that of immortality become crystallised? How are these notions integrated and justified, in the organic system of such and such a culture? How are they distributed, and among which peoples? Only after having answered all these preliminary questions will one have the right to generalise and systematise, to speak in general about the rites of immortality or symbols of the "Centre". If not, one may be contributing to psychology or philosophy, or even theology, but not to the history of religions."[^1] "I believe that, after studying as rigorously as possible the relations between certain religious complexes and certain fo rms of culture, and after verifying the stages of diffusion of these complexes, the ethnologist has a right to declare himself satisfied with the results of his researches. But this is not at all the case with the historian of religions; for when once the findings of ethnology have been accepted and integrated, the latter has still further problems to raise: for instance, why was it possible for such a myth or such a symbol to become diffused? What did it reveal? Why are certain detailsoften very important ones-lost during diffusion, whilst others always survive? To sum it up-what is it that these myths and symbols answer to, that they should have had such a wide diffusion? These questions cannot be passed over to the psychologists, the sociologists or the philosophers, for none of these are better prepared to resolve them than is the historian of religions."[^2] [^1]: Mircea Eliade, *Images and Symbols*, p. 30-31. [^2]: *Ibid*., p. 34.