History of Greek and Roman Philosophy and Science
(PREFACE.
IT is difficult to picture the succession of ev...)
PREFACE.
IT is difficult to picture the succession of events that compose the history of a nation in any other way than by associating them with the fortunes of individuals. Hence the common complaint that, instead of the histories of peoples, we have only the lives of kings and military leaders. Historians find that this is the readiest way to connect the events, and render them easily remembered.
The same expedient is, perhaps, still more necessary in tracing the progress of human opinions. The history of thoughts is best understood and remembered in connection with the history of the thinkers. Those ' airy nothings' can hardly become fixed objects in the memory, but by giving them ' a local habitation and a name;' and a necessary commentary on the writings or doctrines of a philosopher, is a knowledge of the character and environment of the man.
It is on this principle that, in the present volume, the History of ancient Philosophy and Science is associated with Biographical notices of the leading thinkers and writers. As it is hardly to be supposed that one man should be equally conversant with all the parts of so extensive a subject, the several sketches that compose the volume have been contributed by different hands. Owing to this, and to the circumstance that they stood originally in a different connection, they unavoidably involve some degree
of repetition and of variation in the plan of execution. Nor is it pretended that they furnish a complete and uninterrupted history of philosophy. Still it is believed that the reader, while making himself acquainted with the lives of some of the most remarkable men of ancient times, will acquire a tolerable notion of the chief phases that speculative opinion presented in the ancient world; and that what the picture thus loses in point of uniformity and continuity, it gains in reality and clearness.
It is almost unnecessary to speak of the important place that Greek and Roman Philosophy holds in the history of intellectual progress. "Whatever has been done since had its spring in the speculative energy of Greece; and the present position of philosophy cannot be rightly understood without making ourselves acquainted with the speculations of the men with whom it originated.
The intelligent reader will perceive the deficiencies and errors of the different systems of doctrine here sketched without having them pointed out to him at every step; nor will he less recognise and admire the genius of the men, though they advanced many things that, in the light of the nineteenth century of the Christian era, may seem wrong or were ridiculous.
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