Excerpt from A Sketch of Ancient Philosophy From Thales to Cicero The readers whom I have chiefly had in my mind, in writing the following sketch of Ancient Philosophy, are undergraduates at the university or others who are commencing the study of the philosophical works of Cicero or Plato or Aristotle in the original language. It has been my wish to supply to them, what I remember vainly seeking when I was in their position, something which may help them to find their bearings in the new world into which they are plunged on first making acquaintance with such books as Cicero's De Finibus or the Republic of Plato. The only helps which I had in similar circumstances some thirty years ago were a translation of Schleiermacher's Introduction to the Dialogues of Plato, of which I could make nothing, and Lewes' small Biographical History of Philosophy, of which the aim, as far as I could judge, was to show that, as philosophy was moonshine, it was mere waste of time to read what the philosophers had written. Things have changed since then. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.