490 CLOSE OF GRECIAN IIISTORV. just gone through, this spirit was embodied in several eminent persons, whose names have been scarcely adverted to in this history. Among these names, indeed, there are two, of peculiar grandeur, whom I have brought partially before the reader, because both of them belong to general history as well as to pWlosophy ; Plato, as citizen of Athens, companion of Sokrates at Lis trial, and counsellor of Dionysius in his glory — Aristotle, as the teacher of Alexander. I had at one time hoped to include in my present work a record of them as philosophers also, and an estimate of their speculative characteristics ; but I find the subject far too vast to be compressed into such a space as this volume would afford. The exposition of the tenets of distinguished thinkers is not now numbered by historians, either ancient or modern, among the duties incumbent upon them, nor yet among the natural expectations of their readers ; but is reserved for the special historian of philosophy. Accordingly, I have brought my history of Greece to a close, without attempt- ing to do justice either to Plato or to Aristotle. I hope to con- tribute something towards supplying this defect, the magnitude of which I fuUy appreciate, in a separate work, devoted Bpecially to an account of Greek speculative philosophy in the fourth centurj B. C.
