A Critical History of Greek Philosophy

a course of public lectures delivered during the first three
months of

1919. The original division into lectures has been dropped,
      the matter

being more conveniently redivided into chapters.

The audience to whom the lectures were delivered was com-
posed of

members of the general public, and not only of students.
For the most

part they possessed no previous knowledge of philosophy.
Hence this

book, like the original lectures, assumes no previous special

knowledge, though it assumes, of course, a state of general
education

in the reader. Technical philosophical terms are carefully
explained

when first introduced; and a special effort has been made
to put

philosophical ideas in the clearest way possible. But it must
be

remembered that many of the profoundest as well as the
most difficult

of human conceptions are to be found in Greek philosophy.
Such ideas

are difficult in themselves, however clearly expressed. No

amount of

explanation can ever render them anything but difficult to

the

unsophisticated mind, and anything in the nature of “phi-

losophy made

easy” is only to be expected from quacks and charlatans.

Greek philosophy is not, even now, antiquated. It is not

from the

point of view of an antiquary or historian {vi} that its

treasures are

valuable. We are dealing here with living things, and not

with mere

dead things—not with the dry bones and debris of a bygone

age. And I

have tried to lecture and write for living people, and not

for mere

fossil-grubbers. If I did not believe that there is to be found

here,

in Greek philosophy, at least a measure of the truth, the

truth that

does not grow old, I would not waste five minutes of my

life upon it.

“We do not,” says a popular modern writer, [Footnote 1]

“bring the