In revising the _Four Stages of Greek Religion_ I have found myself obliged to change its name. I felt there was a gap in the story. The high-water mark of Greek religious thought seems to me to have come just between the Olympian Religion and the Failure of Nerve; and the decline--if that is the right word--which is observable in the later ages of antiquity is a decline not from Olympianism but from the great spiritual and intellectual effort of the fourth century B.C., which culminated in the _Metaphysics_ and the _De Anima_ and the foundation of the Stoa and the Garden. Consequently I have added a new chapter at this point and raised the number of Stages to five. My friend Mr. E. E. Genner has kindly enabled me to correct two or three errors in the first edition, and I owe special thanks to my old pupil, Professor E. R. Dodds, for several interesting observations and criticisms on points connected with Plotinus and Sallustius. Otherwise I have altered little. I am only sorry to have left the book so long out of print. G. M. PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION This small book has taken a long time in growing. Though the first two essays were only put in writing this year for a course of lectures which I had the honour of delivering at Columbia University in 1912, the third, which was also used at Columbia, had in its main features appeared in the _Hibbert Journal_ in 1910, the fourth in part in the _English Review_ in 1908; the translation of Sallustius was made in 1907 for use with a small class at Oxford. Much of the material is much older in conception, and all has been reconsidered. I must thank the editors of both the above-named periodicals for their kind permission to reprint.