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



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