PREFACE.

I have no need to write a long Preface to inform the Reader of the order and the arrangement that I have observed in this Work, or of what is necessary to know to derive some benefit from it. The General Table of Chapters and Sections will show at a glance the arrangement I have followed; and the Introduction will acquaint the Reader with the goal I have set for myself.

I will only mention in two words that I have not wished to advance anything for which I could not provide proofs that seemed sufficient to support my claims. This led me to decide to quote exactly in the original languages the passages from the Ancients classical Greek and Roman authors upon which I have founded my assertions. I have always taken care to render the exact sense of the Author I quote in the following discourse, when I have not given a literal translation of the cited passages. Those who are curious to examine certain things more scrupulously will be glad to find before their eyes the own terms of the different Authors gathered under a single point of view, and to