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THIS book was prepared and is sent to you with one purpose in view, to enable you to profit in full measure from the writings of the immortals whom you have at your beck and call in the Harvard Classics.
This great company of the wisest, the wittiest, the most interesting minds of all ages and every land will afford you entertainment in endless variety, inspiration and stimulation of mind. They will carry you forward upon that road to the high goal toward which all of us are making our way. It is then to the countless hours in which you will walk in step with these great thinkers of all time that this book is dedicated.
We want something to carry us out of ourselves, to take us a million miles from our humdrum existence, to stimulate our minds to fresh endeavor, to give us a new viewpoint upon our problems, to enable us to get a fresh hold upon ourselves.
They meet every need, they entertain when no other book can, they exhilarate and they satisfy. They bring to you the rare pleasure of commingling with great minds, they feed your mind with stimulating thoughts, they turn your mind into fresh channels. For the Harvard Classics touch every facet of human interest. Here beckoning to you are romance, adventure, drama and mystery. Read to your heart’s content in these full blooded books—full of thrill, stimulus and delight.
These are friendly books to have near you, they are the best of companions at all times. To be able to reach for your favorite volume and take a few moments out of a busy day, in which you are transported to other worlds and other times is a privilege that cannot be held lightly. The Harvard Classics will repay you manyfold in dividends of delight and satisfaction for the hours you have spent in the company of the immortal writers.
“My aim was not to select the best fifty, or best hundred, books in the world, but to give, in twenty-three thousand pages or thereabouts, a picture of the progress of the human race within historical times, so far as that progress can be depicted in books.
it is nothing less than the purpose to present so ample and characteristic a record of the stream of the world’s thought that the observant reader’s mind shall be enriched, refined and fertilized.
“Liberal education accomplishes two objects. It produces a liberal frame of mind, and it makes the studious and reflective recipient acquainted with the stream of the world’s thought and feeling, and with the infinitely varied products of the human imagination. It was my hope and belief that fifty volumes might accomplish this result for any intelligent, ambitious, and persistent reader, whether his early opportunities for education has been large or small. Such was the educational purpose with which I undertook to edit The Harvard Classics.
It is a source of exquisite and enduring delight to have one’s mind stored with many melodious expressions of high thoughts and beautiful imagery.
DR. ELIOT’S Five-Foot Shelf of Books free you from the limitations of your age, of your country, of your personal experiences; they give you access to all ages, to all countries, to all experience. They take you out of the rut of life in the town you live in and make you a citizen of the world. They offer you the companionship of the most interesting and
influential men and women who have ever lived; they make it possible for you to travel without leaving home, and to have vacations without taking time from your work. They offer you—if you will only accept their gifts— friends, travel, the knowledge of life; they offer you education, the means of making your life what you want it to be.
These men are the makers of civilization, the shapers of history. You live with them through past ages; you know
their achievements; you travel with them, discover with them, hear their immortal sayings, listen to their profound logic, thrill to their beautiful poems and stories. The world’s immortals stand ready to take you into their confidence. You can live with them day by day. You can watch Cellini— wonderful combination of artist and knave—in his dealings with princes and pontiffs, his love affairs and his duels. You can read the letters of Pliny the Younger, in which he asks whether he shall destroy the “sect called Christians,” and those describing the destruction of Pompeii.
So vast is the range of The Harvard Classics, that they touch every phase of human interest. They tell of the great discoveries and inventions of the ages, the epoch-making progress of our world in science and medicine, and they relate the history and development of our laws, our educational systems, and our humanitarian reforms. They present the supreme works of 302 of the world’s immortal, creative minds; essays, biography, fiction, history, philosophy, the supreme writings which express man’s ambitions, hope and development throughout the centuries.
Can there be a pleasanter time of the day, or a more delightful season of the year? That purple sky, those wild but sweet notes of birds, the fragrant bloom upon the trees and flowers, the gentle influence of the rising sun, these and a thousand nameless beauties of nature inspire the soul with secret transports;
What think you of distrusting the senses, of denying the real existence of sensible things, or pretending to know nothing of them. Is not this sufficient to denominate a man a sceptic?
Phil. What mean you by Sensible Things? Hyl. Those things which are perceived by the senses.
by sensible things I mean those only which are perceived by sense; and that in truth the senses perceive nothing which they do not perceive immediately: for they make no inferences. The deducing therefore of causes or
