The following pages are intended to serve as a general introduction to Greek literature and thought, for those, primarily, who do not know Greek. Whatever opinions may be held as to the value of translations, it seems clear that it is only by their means that the majority of modern readers can attain to any knowledge of Greek culture; and as I believe that culture to be still, as it has been in the past, the most valuable element of a liberal education, I have hoped that such an attempt as the present to give, with the help of quotations from the original authors, some general idea of the Greek view of life, will not be regarded as labour thrown away.

It has been essential to my purpose to avoid, as far as may be, all controversial matter; and if any classical scholar who may come across this volume should be inclined to complain of omissions or evasions, I would beg him to remember the object of the book and to judge it according to its fitness for its own end.

"The Greek View of Life," no doubt, is a question-begging title, but I believe it to have a quite intelligible meaning; for varied and manifold as the phases may be that are presented by the Greek civilization, they do nevertheless group themselves about certain main ideas, to be distinguished with sufficient clearness from those which have dominated other nations. It is these ideas that I have endeavoured to bring into relief; and if I have failed, the blame, I submit, must be ascribed rather to myself than to the nature of the task I have undertaken.

From permission to make the extracts from translations here printed my
best thanks are due to the following authors and publishers:—Professor
Butcher, Mr. Andrew Lang, Mr. E. D. A. Morshead, Mr. B. B. Rogers, Dr.
Verrall, Mr. A. S. Way, Messrs. George Bell and Sons, the Syndics of the
Cambridge University Press, the Delegates of the Clarendon Press,
Oxford, Messrs. Macmillan and Co., Mr. John Murray, and Messrs. Sampson
Low, Marston and Co.—I have also to thank the Master and Fellows of
Balliol College, Oxford, for permission to quote at considerable length
from the late Professor Jowett's translations of Plato and Thucydides.

Appended is a list of the translations from which I have quoted.