HISTORY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY THE present volume carries on the history of Greek philoso phy from the point at which my book on the earlier systems let it drop, and presupposes, as any study of Socrates and Plato must, an acquaintance with the essentials of Pre-Socratic thought.

Like the first volume, it is written with the conviction that the history of philosophy constitutes one of the best de tective stories ever written, and in the hope that I may convey something of its excitement to the general reader or, at least to one who has perhaps without knowing it a flair for phi losophy and a predisposition to feel and like the "kick" in it.

Then, too, I have tried once more to sugar-coat the pill, or rather the bolus, that the American undergraduate taking a "course" in the history of ancient philosophy is frequently obliged to swallow with unseemly haste.

And I even dare hope that I may help sweeten the taste of those who are ruminating the Platonic cud in a more leisurely way.

In intention, and I think I may say in fact, the present book, like its predecessor, makes no new contribution to what is already known or suggested about its subject, and throws no fresh light upon anything.