238 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 



are well assured they are not as they appear to be, yet the 

 more subtile sophisms not only supply occasions of answer, 

 but also in reality confound the judgment. This part con 

 cerning the confutation of sophisms is. in precept, excel 

 lently treated by Aristotle, but still better by Plato, in 

 example; not only in the persons of the ancient sophists, 

 Gorgias, Hippias, Protagoras, Euthydemus, etc., but even 

 in the person of Socrates himself, 7 who, always professing 

 to affirm nothing, but to confute what was produced by 

 others, has ingeniously expressed the several forms of objec 

 tions, fallacies, and confutations. Therefore in this part we 

 find no deficiency, but only observe by the way, that though 

 we place the true and principal use of this doctrine in the 

 confutation of sophisms, yet it is plain that its degenerate 

 and corrupt use tends to the raising of cavils and contradic 

 tions, by means of those sophisms themselves; which kind 

 of faculty is highly esteemed, and has no small uses, though 

 it is a good distinction made between the orator and the 

 sophist, that the former excels in swiftness, as the grey 

 hound, the other in the turn, as the hare. 



With regard to the confutations of interpretation, we 

 must here repeat what was formerly said of the transcen 

 dental and adventitious conditions of beings, such as greater, 

 less, whole, parts, -motion, rest, etc. For the different way 

 of considering these things, which is either physically or 

 logically, must be remembered. 8 The physical treatment 

 of them we have allotted to primary philosophy, but their 

 logical treatment is what we here call the confutation of 

 interpretation. And this we take for a sound and excellent 

 part of learning, as general and common notions, unless 

 accurately and judiciously distinguished from their origin, 

 are apt to mix themselves in all disputes, so as strangely to 

 cloud and darken the light of the question, and frequently 

 occasion the controversy to end in a quarrel about words: 



7 See the opening of the Thesetetus. 



8 He might have added, mathematically, as greater and less have different 

 significations in arithmetic and algebra. Ed. 



