To The Unknown God [antikvár]

PrefaceLL THESE ESSAYS SAVE ONE ORIG-inally appeared in The Adetyhi, and the remaining one, on 'Literature and Religion,' would have appeared in those small pages had it not been too long for them. They have, I believe, a certain unity of thought and intention, though I do not know how to define it more closely than by saying that they represent the effort of a man of thirty-four to take ?lock, as honestly as he could, of his attitude to life, conscious and unconscious, formulated and unformulable. 'As honestly as he could] I say, because one of the few things I have learned is that it is very hard to be honest. One's capacity for self-deception is almost infinite. I have done my beLfc to be honeft: that is all I claim. That it was my beLt in that direction is proved, to my own satisfaction at leaSt, by the fad that when I settled to the work of revising these essays, I found there was very little in them I could honestly change.I have mitigated a few haSty expressions and expanded others that were too summary: but substantially they remain as I wrote them month by month. The essay 'Literature and Religion' is only a more detailed, some might say a more philosophic, Statement of the position in which I find myself. I have also included, by the author's permission, a7