The present work, however faulty and defective it may be in method or statement, need not be prefaced by any apology for the subject with which it deals. A compendious account of Greek cults, that should analyze and estimate the record left by Greek literature and monuments of the popular and public religion, has long been a desideratum in English and even to a certain extent in German scholarship. Until quite recent years the importance of Greek religion has been contemptuously ignored by English scholars. The cause of this neglect was perhaps the confusion of Greek mythology—that apparently bizarre and hopeless thing—with Greek religion; the effect of it is still apparent in nearly every edition of a Greek play that is put forth. Fortunately, this apathy concerning one of the most interesting parts of ancient life is now passing away; and since this book, the work of many years of broken labour, was begun, a new interest, stimulating to fruitful research, in Greek ritual and myth is being displayed in many quarters, especially at Cambridge.

The comparative study of religion has received signal aid from the science of anthropology, to which England has contributed so much; we have been supplied—not indeed with ‘a key to all the mythologies,’ but with one that unlocks many of the mysteries of myth and reveals some strange secrets of early life and thought.