The Project Gutenberg EBook of Bygone Beliefs, by H. Stanley Redgrove

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Title: Bygone Beliefs

Author: H. Stanley Redgrove

Posting Date: August 15, 2008 [EBook #1271]
Release Date: [Updated edition of: etext98/byblf11.txt; byblf11.zip]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BYGONE BELIEFS ***

Produced by Charles Keller

BYGONE BELIEFS BEING A SERIES OF EXCURSIONS IN THE BYWAYS OF THOUGHT

By H. Stanley Redgrove

_Alle Erfahrung ist Magic, und nur magisch erklarbar_.
NOVALIS (Friedrich von Hardenberg).

Everything possible to be believ'd is an image of truth.
WILLIAM BLAKE.

TO MY WIFE

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PREFACE

THESE Excursions in the Byways of Thought were undertaken at different
times and on different occasions; consequently, the reader may be able
to detect in them inequalities of treatment. He may feel that I have
lingered too long in some byways and hurried too rapidly through others,
taking, as it were, but a general view of the road in the latter case,
whilst examining everything that could be seen in the former with,
perhaps, undue care. As a matter of fact, how ever, all these excursions
have been undertaken with one and the same object in view, that, namely,
of understanding aright and appreciating at their true worth some of the
more curious byways along which human thought has travelled. It is easy
for the superficial thinker to dismiss much of the thought of the past
(and, in