Note 6 — INTRODUCTION.

The translator of this work, and of the other treatises contained in this volume, having been so circumstanced, that he has been obliged to mingle the active with the contemplative life (μετα θεωρητικου νου πολιτευομενος) in acquiring for himself a knowledge of the philosophy of Plato, and disseminating that philosophy for the good of others, has also found it expedient to make use of a fleshy diet. Nothing, however, but an imperious necessity, from causes which it would be superfluous to detail at present, could have induced him to adopt animal, instead of vegetable nutriment. But though he has been nurtured in Eleatic and Academic studies, yet it has not been in Academic bowers.