Ellen M. Mitchell / Ellen MMitchell
The value of philosophy is the basal assumption in the issue of the above volume. Because of its lofty range of inquiry, its thought-discipline, and its search after the ultimate truth, it ranks among the chief studies that can occupy human attention. Greek philosophy also, from its antecedent and fundamental relation to the later philosophic systems, is a perpetual body of instruction. Its maxims have an enduring charm for men; its theories, if dissented from, are wisely conceived; its leaders are among the great schoolmasters of the world. In a circle of St. Louis women, where the study of Greek thought was undertaken under the lead of the present author, the book now considered had its origin. From the rise of philosophy in Greece, under the Ionians, to its close following Neo-Platonism the historic review here sweeps. The personality of many great leaders of Grecian thought-as Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Zeno-is set forth with clearness; and the differing systems which they gave to their age and the world are traced with sufficient outline for the full understanding of the whole range of Grecian inquiry in those great centuries of intellectual activity. It is instructive in these days, when the materialistic is receiving its full share of notice at the expense of the ideal, to notice such a circle of learners as that which gave the present volume its origin; and in the published result of their philosophic pursuits a wider circle of readers should find enjoyment and edification.
