PREFACE TO VOL, XI. THIS History has already occupied a far larger space than I at first intended or anticipated. Nevertheless, to bring it to the term marked out in my original preface the close of the generation contemporary with Alexander, on whose reign we are about to enter one more Volume will yet be required. That Volume will include a review of Plato and Aristotle, so far as the limits of a general history permit. Plato, in- deed, belonging to the period already described, is partially noticed in the present Volume ; at an epoch of his life when, as counsellor of Dion}^sius II., he exercised positive action on the destinies of Syracuse. But I thought it more con- venient to reserve the appreciation of his philosophical char- acter and influence, until I could present him in juxtaposi- tion with his pupil Aristotle, whose maturity falls within the
