Ancient ideals

Henry Osborn Taylor's study traces how people's minds and spiritual lives developed, from the earliest periods up to the rise of Christianity. Archaeological evidence appears in the first six chapters, but it serves the larger argument about growth rather than standing as the focus.

The opening chapter on Greek beginnings does not mention Crete, which the author regards as a gap. He still believes the chapter describes how the Hellenic people gradually came into their own. Later discoveries on Crete push that unfinished story back many centuries and shed more light on it. Readers who want that material are directed to the work of Sir Arthur J. Evans, including his summary in the Encyclopedia Britannica entry on Crete, and to several books on Cretan and Greek archaeology.

For the ideas of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, the author points readers to James Henry Breasted's studies of Egyptian religion and thought and to Morris Jastrow's account of religious belief and practice in Babylonia.