The tablets our chief source for Orphic doctrines. Their _provenance_ and general character. The Petelia tablet of the British Museum. Analogous tablets from Crete. The Well of Mnemosyne. Parallels in Fiji and Egypt. Lethe in Greek Literature. Lethe in the ritual of Trophonios. The river of Eunoë, Good Consciousness, in Dante. The Sybaris tablets. The tablet of Caecilia Secundina. The confession of Ritual Acts on the Sybaris tablets. The attainment of divinity through purification. The escape from the Wheel. The kid and the milk. The formulary of adoption. Eschatology on Orphic vases from Lower Italy. Orpheus in Hades. The tortured criminals. Developement by Orphism of doctrine of eternal punishment. The Danaides and the Uninitiated, pp. 573-624. CHAPTER XII. ORPHIC COSMOGONY. Orphic theology as seen in the Hymns. The World-Egg. Use of eggs in Orphic ritual of purification. Birth of Eros from World-Egg. Complex origin of Orphic Eros. Eros as Herm. Eros as Ker of life. Evidence of art. Eros as Ephebos. Eros and the Earth-Mother. Eros present at the Anodos. Evidence of art. The Mystery-cult at Phlya, the birthplace of Euripides. Pythagorean revival of the cult of the Mother. The mystic Eros as Phanes and Protogonos. _Contaminatio_ of Eros and Dionysos. Popular Orphism on vases from Thebes. Eros as Proteurhythmos. The divinities of Orphism are demons rather than gods. Orphism resumed, pp. 625-659. CRITICAL APPENDIX ON THE ORPHIC TABLETS pp. 660-674. INDEX I. Greek pp. 675, 676. II. General pp. 676-680. CHAPTER I. OLYMPIAN AND CHTHONIC RITUAL. ‘δαίμοσι μειλιχίοισιν ἱλάσματα καὶ μακάρεσσιν οὐρανίοις.’ In characterizing the genius of the Greeks Mr Ruskin says: ‘_there is no dread in their hearts; pensiveness, amazement, often deepest grief and desolation, but terror never. Everlasting calm in the presence of all Fate, and joy such as they might win, not indeed from perfect beauty, but from beauty at perfect rest._’ The lovely words are spoken of course mainly with reference to art, but they are meant also to characterize the Greek in his attitude towards the invisible, in his religion—meant to shew that the Greek, the favoured child of fortune yet ever unspoilt, was exempt from the discipline to which the rest of mankind has been subject, never needed to learn the lesson that in the Fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom.