28 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 



assert that all things are generated and destroyed, others that nothing 

 can be generated or destroyed." " The older sophists," says Phi- 

 lostratus ({. e. those of the age of Socrates), " discoursed largely upon 

 all philosophical questions ; for instance, concerning fortitude, justice, 

 heroes, and gods, the formation and figure of the universe ; whereas 

 the more recent sophists (not the latest of all, but those of a middle 

 age) delineated characters, and discussed questions relating to indi- 

 vidual persons (vTroOiffeig EIQ ovojjia) mentioned in history. The 

 first of the older sophists was Gorgias of Leontium ; of the second 

 class, ^schines, the son of Atrometus, who professed the art in Caria 

 and Rhodes, after his political failure at Athens." He gives the fol- 

 lowing account of the different modes pursued by the philosopher and 

 the ancient sophist in their teaching. " The old sophistic art may 

 properly be termed a philosophising rhetoric, for it discusses the same 

 topics as the philosophers; but what they propose in the form of 

 questions, advancing step by step, and professing not to know with 

 certainty ; of all this the old sophist professes a perfect knowledge. 

 He begins his discourses with I know, and / understand, and 1 have 

 thoroughly considered, 1 and nothing is certain to man (fiifiaiov avQpuiry 

 oveV, this seems to refer to the universal doubt of the sceptics)," 



It is a common remark, that Socrates was the first who transferred 

 philosophy from the contemplation of natural history to the manners 

 of men : but this is not literally true ; for although the Ionic school 

 was chiefly employed in physiological researches, the sophists, who 

 came to Athens about the time of Socrates, professed, at least, to 

 combine ethics and politics with the more abstruse studies of nature. 

 The principal merit, however, to which they laid claim, was that of 

 communicating to their disciples a ready off-hand kind of knowledge, 

 which might enable them to talk speciously and fluently upon all 

 subjects whatever ; 2 and to impart to them that pernicious skill in 

 dialectics, by which they might baffle their adversary, whether right 

 or wrong, and " make the worse appear the better cause." In his 

 celebrated dialogue, entitled 'The Sophist,' Plato has exposed the 

 manners and arts of the sophists of his time, against whom Socrates 

 declared interminable war. So successful were these pretenders to 

 wisdom, in their endeavours to impose upon their countrymen, that 

 the most eminent of them moved from city to city, attended by a vast 



1 Ka/ veiXKf 'btiffxifx.fAu.i, which Olearius renders ac rursus, dubito, as if it were 

 xu.} vrdKtv lictrKivropai. Philostratus seems to have had in his mind that verse of 

 Aristophanes (Ran. 860), \yulas. rourov, x,tt\ "&iiffxip.ftcu vraiXat, " have thoroughly 

 considered him." It was a word used by the Pyrrhonists. 



" When Socrates professed his desire to ask some questions concerning the art 

 which Gorgias professed, Callicles says to him, " There is nothing like asking the 

 man himself, Socrates ; for this is one part of his public exhibition : it was only 

 just now that he desired any one of the party to ask him any question he pleased, 

 and declared that he would give an answer to all." Upon which Chaerephon asks 

 Gorgias whether this be true; to which he replies, "It is quite true, Chaerephon; 

 I did make this promise ; and, moreover, I say that nobody has put a new question 

 to me for these many years." Plato, Gorg. p. 447. 



