much scattered information illustrative of the _Academica_, which
was before difficult of access. The present work will, I hope, prepare the
way for an exhaustive edition either from my own or some more competent
hand. It must be regarded as an experiment, for no English scholar of
recent times has treated any portion of Cicero's philosophical works with
quite the purpose which I have kept in view and have explained above.
Should this attempt meet with favour, I propose to edit after the same plan
some others of the less known and less edited portions of Cicero's
writings.

In dealing with a subject so unusually difficult and so rarely edited I
cannot hope to have escaped errors, but after submitting my views to
repeated revision during four years, it seems better to publish them than
to withhold from students help they so greatly need. Moreover, it is a
great gain, even at the cost of some errors, to throw off that intellectual
disease of over-fastidiousness which is so prevalent in this University,
and causes more than anything else the unproductiveness of English
scholarship as compared with that of Germany,

I have only to add that I shall be thankful for notices of errors and
omissions from any who are interested in the subject.

JAMES S. REID.

CHRIST'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, _December, 1873._

* * * * *

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS USED IN THIS WORK.

Cic. = Cicero; Ac., Acad. = Academica; Ac., Acad. Post. = Academica
Posteriora; D.F. = De Finibus; T.D. = Tusculan Disputations; N.D. = De
Natura Deorum; De Div. = De Divinatione; Parad. = Paradoxa; Luc. =
Lucullus; Hortens. = Hortensius; De Off. = De Officiis; Tim. = Timaeus;
Cat. Mai. = Cato Maior; Lael. = Laelius; De Leg. = De Legibus; De Rep. = De
Republica; Somn. Scip. = Somnium Scipionis; De Or. = De Oratore; Orat. =
Orator; De Inv. = De Inventione; Brut. = Brutus; Ad Att. = Ad Atticum; Ad
Fam. = Ad Familiares; Ad Qu. Frat. = Ad Quintum Fratrem; In Verr., Verr. =
In Verrem; Div. in. Qu. Caec. = Divinatio in Quintum Caecilium; In Cat. =
In Catilinam.

Plat. = Plato: Rep. = Republic; Tim. = Timaeus; Apol. = Apologia Socratis;
Gorg. = Gorgias; Theaet. = Theaetetus.

Arist. = Aristotle; Nic. Eth. = Nicomachean Ethics; Mag. Mor. = Magna
Moralia; De Gen. An. = De Generatione Animalium; De Gen. et Corr. = De
Generatione et Corruptione; Anal. Post. = Analytica Posteriora; Met. =
Metaphysica; Phys. = Physica.

Plut. = Plutarch; De Pla