egance
of his style; indeed, he modified the principles of the school so much,
that some writers called him a Platonist. In natural philosophy he
abandoned the Stoic doctrine of the conflagration of the world;
endeavoured to simplify the division of the faculties of the soul; and
doubted the reality of the science of divination. In ethics he followed
the method of Aristotle; and, in direct opposition to the earlier Stoics,
vindicated the claim of certain pleasurable sensations to be regarded as
in accordance with nature.

_Polemo_ was a pupil of Xenocrates, and succeeded him as the head of his
school. There is a story that he had been a very dissolute young man, and
that one day, at the head of a band of revellers, he burst into the school
of Xenocrates, when his attention was so arrested by the discourse of the
philosopher, which happened to be on the subject of temperance, that he
tore off his festive garland, remained till the end of the lecture, and
devoted himself to philosophy all the rest of his life. He does not appear
to have varied at all from the doctrines of his master. He died B.C. 273.

_Archytas_ was a native of Tarentum: his age is not quite certain, but he
is believed to have been a contemporary of Plato, and he is even said to
have saved his life by his interest with the tyrant Dionysius. He was a
great general and statesman, as well as a philosopher. In philosophy he
was a Pythagorean; and, like most of that school, a great mathematician;
and applied his favourite science not only to music, but also to
metaphysics. Aristotle is believed to have borrowed from him his System of
Categories.

The limits of this volume forbid more than the preceding very brief sketch
of the chiefs of the ancient philosophy. For a more detailed account the
reader is referred to the Biographical Dictionary edited by Dr. Smith,
from which valuable work much of this sketch has been derived. The account
of Socrates has been principally derived from Mr. Grote's admirable
history of Greece: in which attention has so successfully been devoted to
the history of philosophy and the sophists, that a correct idea of the
subject can hardly be acquired without a careful study of that work.

It was intended to subjoin a comparison of the systems of the different
sects, but it would take more space than can be spared; and it is moreover
unnecessary, as, the distinctive tenets of each having been explained, the
reader is supplied with su