Footnote 1: _Philostratus_, Book IV, chapter xlv. I am indebted to Dr Conybeare’s translation, published by Messrs Heinemann, for this and some other quotations. The book is a very useful one, the Greek and English being given side by side. Footnote 2: I am indebted to G. R. S. Mead’s work, _Apollonius of Tyana, The Philosopher-Reformer of the First Century A.D._ (London: T. P. S.), for these particulars. Footnote 3: “Happy is the man that findeth wisdom. Length of days is in her right hand and in her left hand riches and honour. Her ways are ways of pleasantness and all her paths are peace” (Prov. iii. 13, 16, 17). II PLOTINUS The problem of the origin of the universe is one with which every religion in a certain sense claims to deal; but it is a problem only of the most recondite sphere of metaphysics, while religions generally, in order to ensure their success, make appeal to popular sympathy and endeavour to bring down the truths which they enshrine to the intellectual level of the masses of mankind. To put abstruse truths into simple language is an impossibility. They can, however, be conveyed by a species of symbolism, or presented in an allegorical form which will be interpreted in one sense by the vulgar and in another by the philosopher or the religious initiate. The communication of these hidden truths has been represented in the case of most religions as a definite revelation from a higher plane; but whatever claim is made as to their origin, they are at least put before the rank and file of the faithful as dogmas to be accepted unhesitatingly as a vital element of the orthodox religion of the time or country. Such dogmas in their crude form, it is needless to say, have never made appeal to the high philosophical intelligence of the day. Under the autocratic regime of persecuting Christianity during the Middle Ages of Europe, Christian dogma was indeed accepted nominally by great intellects, but it was accepted under duress and with a reservation, and subject to such interpretations of its inner meaning as might commend themselves to the mental standpoint of their professor. The men of highest intellect were compelled to express the faith that was in them in the most guarded language, and if they failed to do so they were only too liable to share the fate of Galileo, or—worse still—of Giordano Bruno. The sole exception to this rule is to be found in Oriental countries, such as India, where religion, whether Brahmin or Buddhist, has assumed a less dogmatic form, and has found it possible accordingly to assimilate and identify itself with philosophical speculations of the profoundest and most abstruse character, without any sense of incongruity or doing violence to its own specific tenets. It is true that Mohammedanism appears to contradict this, but it must be remembered that the religion of Mohammed was in the nature of a foreign