deals of divinity which belonged to their
chief gods. Here the skill of the artist would have availed little or
nothing if he had not shared with the people for whom he worked a belief
in the reality of these ideals, not merely as philosophic aspects of the
divine nature, but as real beings who were able to help and to inspire,
and to manifest themselves to their worshippers in this human form. The
next step is towards an even more vivid realisation of the personality
of the gods; but by bringing them nearer to human level it made the
worship of their images less easy to accept in a literal sense to the
more thoughtful, while such worship tended, with the common people, to
enter upon a more material and less exalted phase. The result was a
tendency towards symbolism in which the symbol itself was regarded as a
mere convention, and the inspiration and actual communion with men,
vouchsafed by the gods through their ideal images, was no longer sought
after. When any means of communion between god and man, whether by means
of a solemn service or by means of an image which the god himself
accepts as his earthly representative, ceases to be felt as anything
more than a human device, its religious power must fail. When, on the
other hand, we find a union of religion and art to provide a means for
this divine intercourse, we may recognise idolatry in its highest form,
the use of images not merely as accessories of religious service, but as
providing in themselves a channel of worship and inspiration.

WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD.
PRINTERS, PLYMOUTH

Harper's Library of Living Thought

_Foolscap 8vo, gilt tops, decorative covers, richly gilt backs_
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"Original research of great importance."--_Times_

CRETE, THE FORERUNNER OF GREECE
BY
C. H. Hawes, M.A. & Harriet B. Hawes, M.A.
_With Map, Plans, etc._
Preface by Arthur J. Evans, D.Litt., F.R.S., Etc.

"Mr. and Mrs. Hawes have a fascinating story to tell--the story of the
unfolding of a great civilisation which flourished in Crete before
Abraham was born. Reading these deeply interesting pages we seem to get
right back into the dawn of history. We seem to enter into the feelings
of the inhabitants when the ships of the sea-rovers hove in sight. Here
a carpenter's kit lies concealed in a cranny; there a carefully mended
anvil stands at the door of the village smithy. In the palace at Knossos
the system