PREFACE TO VOL. VIII.
I had hoped to be able, in this Volume, to carry the history of Greece down as far as the battle of Knidus; but I find myself disappointed.
A greater space than I anticipated has been necessary, not merely to do justice to the closing events of the Peloponnesian war, especially the memorable scenes at Athens after the battle of Arginusæ, but also to explain my views both respecting the Sophists and respecting Sokratês.
It has been hitherto common to treat the sophists as corruptors of the Greek mind, and to set forth the fact of such corruption, increasing as we descend downwards from the great invasion of Xerxês, as historically certified. Dissenting as I do from former authors, and believing that Grecian history has been greatly misconceived, on both these points, I have been forced to discuss the evidences, and exhibit the reasons for my own way of thinking, at considerable length.
To Sokratês I have devoted one entire Chapter. No smaller space would have sufficed to lay before the reader any tolerable picture of that illustrious man, the rarest intellectual phenomenon of ancient times, and originator of the most powerful scientific impulse which the Greek mind ever underwent.
G. G.
London, February, 1850.