Project Gutenberg's A Short History of Greek Philosophy, by John Marshall

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: A Short History of Greek Philosophy

Author: John Marshall

Release Date: February 1, 2007 [EBook #20500]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREEK PHILOSOPHY ***

Produced by Al Haines

A SHORT HISTORY

OF

GREEK PHILOSOPHY

BY

JOHN MARSHALL

M.A. OXON., LL.D. EDIN.

RECTOR OF THE ROYAL HIGH SCHOOL, EDINBURGH

FORMERLY PROFESSOR OF CLASSICAL LITERATURE AND PHILOSOPHY

IN THE YORKSHIRE COLLEGE, LEEDS

LONDON

PERCIVAL AND CO.

1891

_All rights reserved_

PREFACE

The main purpose which I have had in view in writing this book has been
to present an account of Greek philosophy which, within strict limits
of brevity, shall be at once authentic and interesting--_authentic_, as
being based on the original works themselves, and not on any secondary
sources; _interesting_, as presenting to the ordinary English reader,
in language freed as far as possible from technicality and
abstruseness, the great thoughts of the greatest men of antiquity on
questions of permanent significance and value. There has been no
attempt to shirk the really philosophic problems which these men tried
in their day to solve; but I have endeavoured to show, by a sympathetic
treatment of them, that these problems were no mere wars of words, but
that in fact the philosophers of twenty-four centuries ago were dealing
with exactly similar difficulties as to the bases of belief and of
right action as, under different forms, beset thoughtful men and women
to-day.

In the general treatment of the subject, I have followed in the main
the order, and drawn chiefly on the selection of passages, in Ritter
and Preller's _Historia Philosophiae Graecae_. It is hoped that in
this way the little book may be found useful at the universities, as a
running commentary on that excellent work; and the better to aid
students in the use of it for that purpose, the corresponding sections
in Ritter and Preller are indicated by the figures in the margin.

In the sections on Plato, and occasionally elsewhere, I have drawn to
som