The object of the following lectures is twofold. They were delivered in
the first place for the purpose of directing the attention of readers to
books whose literary charm and spiritual value have made them
conspicuous in the vast literature of England. Such a task, however,
tends to be so discursive as to lose all unity, depending absolutely
upon the taste of the individual, and the chances of his experience in
reading.
I have accordingly taken for the general theme of the book that constant
struggle between paganism and idealism which is the deepest fact in the
life of man, and whose story, told in one form or another, provides the
matter of all vital literature. This will serve as a thread to give
continuity of thought to the lectures, and it will keep them near to
central issues.
Having said so much, it is only necessary to add one word more by way of
explanation. In quest of the relations between the spiritual and the
material, or (to put it otherwise) of the battle between the flesh and
the spirit, we shall dip into three different periods of time: (1)
Classical, (2) Sixteenth Century, (3) Modern. Each of these has a
character of its own, and the glimpses which we shall have of them ought
to be interesting in their own right. But the similarity between the
three is more striking than the contrast, for human nature does not
greatly change, and its deepest struggles are the same in all
generations.