to the statement of the question of Crœsus. For in order that any one should be conceived of as happy, we must await his death, for happiness depends upon his condition to the end, and upon the fact that his death should be a pious one and be consistent with his higher destiny. Because the life of Crœsus had not yet expired, Solon could not deem him happy. And the history of Crœsus bears evidence that no momentary state deserves the name of happiness. This edifying history holds in its embrace the whole standpoint of the reflection of that time. _Division of the Subject_. In the consideration of Greek philosophy we have now to distinguish further three important periods:—in the first place the period from Thales to Aristotle; secondly, Greek philosophy in the Roman world; thirdly, the Neo-platonic philosophy. 1. We begin with thought, as it is in a quite abstract, natural or sensuous form, and we proceed from this to the Idea as determined. This first period shows the beginning of philosophic thought, and goes on to its development and perfection as a totality of knowledge in itself; this takes place in Aristotle as representing the unity of what has come before. In Plato there is just such a union of what came earlier, but it is not worked out, for he only represents the Idea generally. The Neo-platonists have been called eclectics, and Plato was said to have brought about the unity; they were not, however, eclectics, but they had a conscious insight into the necessity for uniting these philosophies. 2. After the concrete Idea was reached, it came forth as if in opposites, perfecting and developing itself. The second period is that in which science breaks itself up into different systems. A one-sided principle is carried through the whole conception of the world; each side is in itself formed into a totality, and stands in the relation of one extreme to another. The philosophical systems of Stoicism and Epicureanism are such; scepticism forms the negative to their dogmatism, while the other philosophies disappear. 3. The third period is the affirmative, the withdrawal of the opposition into an ideal world or a world of thought, a divine world. This is the Idea developed into totality, which yet lacks subjectivity as the infinite being-for-self. SECTION ONE FIRST PERIOD, FROM THALES TO ARISTOTLE IN this first period we shall again make three divisions:— 1. The first extends from Thales to Anaxagoras, from abstract thought which is in immediate determinateness to the thought of the self-determining Thought. Here a beginning is made with the absolutely simple, in which the earliest methods of determination manifest themselves as attempts, until the time of Anaxagoras; he determines the true as the _νοῦς_, and as active thought which no longer is in a determinate character, but which is self-determining.