What, in the end, is the importance of the vast body of philosophical and theological work explored in this volume? It is likely to be an important question for the modern reader whether there is anything lastingly useful in these explanations devised evident as they were then.

Yet, putting it at its most modest, there is something substantial to be salvaged, beyond that which is of historical interest. Framing the right questions is arguably a more important task of enquiry than arriving at the right answers. Of course these accounts, for the most part, will still not do. But the questions they seek to answer are still with us. And while they remain so, these wrestlings will be instructive.