The Greek Philosophers, Vol. 1 (of 2)

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS VOL I.
ALFRED WILLIAM BENN
Εὑρηκέναι μὲν οὖν τινὰς τῶν ἀρχαίων καὶ μακαρίων φιλοσόφων τὸ ἀληθὲς δεῖ νομίζειν· τίνες δὲ οἱ τυχόντες μάλιστα καὶ πῶς ἂν καὶ ἡμῖν σύνεσις περὶ τούτων γένοιτο ἐπισκέψασθαι προσήκει
Plotinus
Quamquam ab his philosophiam et omnes ingenuas disciplinas habemus: sed tamen est aliquid quod nobis non liceat, liceat illis
Cicero
IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. I.
LONDON KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, & CO., 1 PATERNOSTER SQUARE 1882
AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED TO J. B. B.
A considerable portion of the present work, comprising the whole of the first volume and the first two chapters of the second, is reprinted with corrections and additions from the Westminster Review . The last chapter of the second volume has already appeared under a slightly different title in Mind for January and April 1882. The chapters entitled, ‘The Sceptics and Eclectics,’ ‘The Religious Revival,’ and ‘The Spiritualism of Plotinus,’ are now published for the first time.
The subject of Greek philosophy is so vast that, in England at least, it has become customary to deal with it in detached portions rather than as a connected whole. This method has its advantages, but it has also its drawbacks. The critic who singles out some one thinker for special study is apt to exaggerate the importance of his hero and to credit him with the origination of principles which were really borrowed from his predecessors. Moreover, the appearance of a new idea can only be made intelligible by tracing the previous tendencies which it either continues, combines, or contradicts. In a word, the history of philosophy has itself a philosophy which requires that we should go beyond particular phenomena and view them as variously related parts of a single system.