There is no royal road in these matters. I confess it seems strange to me as I write here, to reflect that at this moment many of my friends and most of my fellow creatures are, as far as one can judge, quite confident that they possess supernatural knowledge. As a rule, each individual belongs to some body which has received in writing the results of a divine revelation. I cannot share in any such feeling. The Uncharted surrounds us on every side and we must needs have some relation towards it, a relation which will depend on the general discipline of a man's mind and the bias of his whole character. As far as knowledge and conscious reason will go, we should follow resolutely their austere guidance. When they cease, as cease they must, we must use as best we can those fainter powers of apprehension and surmise and sensitiveness by which, after all, most high truth has been reached as well as most high art and poetry: careful always really to seek for truth and not for our own emotional satisfaction, careful not to neglect the real needs of men and women through basing our life on dreams; and remembering above all to walk gently in a world where the lights are dim and the very stars wander. BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE It is not my purpose to make anything like a systematic bibliography, but a few recommendations may be useful to some students who approach this subject, as I have done, from the side of classical Greek. For Greek Philosophy I have used besides Plato and Aristotle, Diogenes Laertius and Philodemus, Diels, _Fragmente der Vorsokratiker_; Diels, _Doxographi Graeci_; von Arnim, _Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta_; Usener, _Epicurea_; also the old _Fragmenta Philosophorum_ of Mullach. For later Paganism and Gnosticism, Reitzenstein, _Poimandres_; Reitzenstein, _Die hellenistischen Mysterienreligionen_; Dieterich, _Eine Mithrasliturgic_ (also _Abraxas_, _Nekyia_, _Muttererde_, &c.); P. Wendland, _Hellenistisch-Römische Kultur_; Cumont, _Textes et Monuments relatifs aux Mystères de Mithra_ (also _The Mysteries of Mithra_, Chicago, 1903), and _Les Religions Orientales dans l'Empire Romain_; Seeck, _Untergang der antiken Welt_, vol. iii; Philo, _de Vita Contemplativa_, Conybeare; Gruppe, _Griechische Religion and Mythologie_, pp. 1458-1676; Bousset, _Hauptprobleme der Gnosis_, 1907, with good bibliography in the introduction; articles by E. Bevan in the _Quarterly Review_, No. 424 (June 1910), and the _Hibbert Journal_, xi. 1 (October 1912). _Dokumente der Gnosis_, by W. Schultz (Jena, 1910), gives a highly subjective translation and reconstruction of most of the Gnostic documents: the _Corpus Hermeticum_ is translated into English by G. R. S. Meade, _Thrice Greatest Hermes_, 1906. The first volume of Dr. Scott's monumental edition of the _Hermetica_ (Clarendon Press, 1924) has appeared just too late to be used in the present volume.