THE SOPHISTA OF PLATO, &c. 159 



any manual of the history of philosophy. For our present purpose it were to be wished that 

 some portion of the voluminous writings of Antisthenes had been preserved, in addition to the 

 meagre declamations, if they are really his, which are commonly printed with the Oratores 

 Attici. The notices, however, which Aristotle and his commentators have preserved to us, 

 countenance the assumption just made, that the Earth-born are the Cynics. Hatred of Plato 

 and the Idealists seems to have been the ruling passion of Antisthenes, and this passion drove 

 him into the anti-Platonic extremes of Materialism in Physics, and an exaggerated Nominalism 

 in Dialectic. " He could not see Humanity, but he could see a Man," is one of his recorded 

 sarcasms upon the doctrine of ideas'. "Your body has eyes, your soul has none," was the 

 curt reply of Plato. Many other stinging pleasantries were interchanged by the leaders of the 

 two schools: and Antisthenes, less guarded than his antagonist, wrote a dialogue "in three 

 parts," entitled So^coi/, which was avowedly directed against Plato in revenge for a bitinw 

 reply (Diog. Laert. iii. § 35 ; vi. ^ l6). The subject of this dialogue has been recorded, and 

 it is not a little curious that it was written to disprove the very position which Plato devotes a 

 large proportion of the Sophista to establishing; viz. that there is a sense in which " the Non-ens 

 is," in other words, that negative propositions are conceivable. Antisthenes maintained in this 

 book, oTi ovK eariv avriXeyew. If we add, that he also wrote four books on Opinion and 

 Science {-irepi So^Tji kuI etnar^fxri^), we shall hardly think the conjecture extravagant, that 

 the remainder of this dialogue is, in the main, a critique of the Cynical Logic. Another 

 paradox of this school, closely connected with the last, is recorded by Aristotle^ and sarcasti- 

 cally noticed at page 251 b of the Sophista, in terms which leave little doubt as to the object 

 of Plato's satire. If Antisthenes really pushed this paradox to its legitimate results — and 

 from the character of the man it is not unlikely he did — he must be understood as maintaining 

 that identical propositions are the only propositions which do not involve a contradiction : a 

 theory which, as Plato shews, renders language itself impossible^ as well as that inward 

 " discourse of reason*," of which language is the antitype. 



The resemblance of the Cynical Logic to the Eleatic is usually accounted for by the cir- 

 cumstance that Antisthenes had been a hearer of Gorgias, who wrote a treatise, preserved or 



' Tzetzes, Chil.vii. 605; Schol. im Arist. Categ. ed. Brandis, 

 p. 666, 45 and 68 6, 26 ; Zeller, G. P. ii. p. 116, note 1. 



^ Metaph. v, 29 : 'AvTitrdevit^ wcto euijOws jutjBci/ d^iuiv 

 \ey€(Fdat irXufV tw olKeiay Xoyw eu e(p* evov e£ caf rjvve^aive 

 fiij eivai dvTiXeyetv^ ff-)^eSdl/ 5' oiide \t/€ude<T6ai. Plat. Soph. 

 1. 1.: OVK eoii'Te? dyadou Xeyetv dvQpwjrov, dWd to fjLCv dyaOdu 

 dyaQov t^v 51 dvdpanrov dvQpwirov. The latter passage explains 

 the olKeiu) \6ym of Aristotle, and the allusion is further deter- 

 mined by the dfiovorov Tii/09 Kal drj>t\oa-6<pov applied to the 

 upholder of the similar sophisms noted at p. 259 D. In the 

 latter passage occur the following words : ou -re tis eXeyxot 

 0VT09 aA-tjCiyos, dpTL Te T(jav ovtojv tiv6<i ktpa'WTop.evov 5^\os 

 wfoyei/ijs mi/. " This is no genuine or legitimate confutation: 

 but theinfant progeny of a brain new to philosophical discussion." 



This hangs together with the yepoi/Twu toIs 6tlfip.a9e(Ti " the 



old gentlemen who have gone to school late in life," p. 

 251 B, and both passages are illustrated by a notice in Diog. 

 Laert. vi. 1, init. that Antisthenes, having been originally a 

 hearer of Gorgias, became at a later period a disciple of Socrates, 



and brought with him as many of his pupils as he could induce 

 to follow his example. A similar sarcasm is hurled at Diony- 

 sodorus and Euthydemus, in the Euthyd. p. 272 c, which not 

 improbably was designed to glance oft' from them upon some 

 contemporary Eristic. Antisthenes, we know, was present at 

 the battle of Tanagra, in B.C. 426. He may therefore have 

 been Plato's senior by some 20 years. 



^ Kal yap tjo 'yade, to ye irdv dir& iraj'TOS iTTi\eipeXv 

 airo^wpi^eti/, aWws -re ovk eju/xeXe? Kal 61] Kal ■jravTairatrnr 

 dfioixTov Tivoi Kal d(piXotT6fpov. 6. xi Sij ; S. TeXeio-raTq 

 nrdvTUjv Xoywv earTiv d<pdv ivi-i td StaXveiv ^/caffTOf dird 

 'Trdirrwv' Std yap xi|V a\X»|\(Oi/ Tton eldtjou arvpLTrXoKtjt/ 6 Xdyos 

 yeyovev r\pXv, Soph. 259 D. 



* didXoyo^ dvev (pwvjjs yiyv6p.evoi gtt oivofxaoQi) Stdvota, 

 Soph. 263 E. Van Heusde first pointed out the infamous ety- 

 mology lurking in this passage {Stdvota—didXoyo^ ditev) 

 The sentiment, without the etymology, occurs in Theat. 189 E : 

 {to 3e ^tavoeXa^ai KaXm) Xoyov 3v aiiTii irpov auTiji/ jj ^vX'i 

 die^epxsTal Trepl wv dv ctkott^. 



