A few notes of general character are here appended. Biographical and mythological details may be found in classical dictionaries. They are, however, rarely necessary to make clear the object of the author’s allusions. A word or a phrase not in the original has, in a few cases, been inserted in the translation to preclude the necessity of a note. Τοῦ θείου of the title. It is not clear from the writings of Plutarch to what extent he was a monotheist. He uses θεὸς both with and without the article. In some cases his meaning is perfectly clear; in others not. The New Testament writers, whose monotheism is beyond question, frequently use the article before the name of God. In like manner proper names sometimes have the article and sometimes are without it. Thus we have Παῦλος and ὁ Παῦλος, Πιλᾶτος usually has the article while Τίτος never has it, etc. CHAP. 3. The thought here expressed regarding the mills of the gods has been put into the form of a couplet by Longfellow in his Poetic Aphorisms, thus: “Though the mills of God grind slowly yet they grind exceeding small; Though with patience He stands waiting, with exactness grinds He all.” The purport of the passage is plain, but the parallelism between the fact and the figure is not very close. The idea is much older than Plutarch. CHAP. 4. “The ingle-side” or ancestral hearth. According to the ancients the hearth was the center and beginning of the family and the state. The expression, which is often used by Plato and others, is equivalent to the _remotest beginning_. Compare also the Roman Vesta.