SOCRATES. 29 



train of scholars, who paid large sums, for the inestimable advantage 

 of being taught the art of deceiving and overreaching their fellow- 

 citizens : and, indeed, Xenophon tells us that Socrates applied the 

 term sophist exclusively to those who sold wisdom for money, and 

 would not allow them to be called either ao&oi or <f>i\6<ro(j)oi. The 

 sophist is described in the dialogue above-mentioned, as 1st, a mer- 

 cenary hunter of rich young men ; 2nd, a wholesale trafficker in meta- 

 physical knowledge ; 3rd, a retail trader in the same ; 4th, one who 

 sells his own manufactures ; 5th, one practised in the gymnastics of 

 litigious eloquence ; 6th, one, who himself contradicts, and teaches 

 others to contradict, and be contentious in questions relating to divine 

 things, to the phenomena of nature, and to political science ; l 7th, a 

 kind of conjurer, or juggler, who, with the semblance of truth, per- 

 suades young men that he knows everything, whereas, in fact, he has 

 only a delusive show of wisdom, without the substance. The dia- 

 lectic subtlety of these men is exposed by Plato, in his ' Euthydemus :' 

 but it must be confessed, that, by their minute cavils and objections, 

 by their divisions and subdivisions, they led the way to a truer and 

 more exact system of logic than had heretofore been known. 



The great'leader of the sophists was PROTAGORAS, of Abdera, or of Protagoras. 

 Teos, a scholar of Democritus, who, having commenced the custom 

 of demanding a fee for admission to his lectures, amassed more money, 

 says Socrates, in Plato, than Phidias, and any ten sculptors besides. 

 This gainful trade he pursued for forty years, and, when he died, left 

 a great reputation behind him. He was not, however, the earliest 

 sophist ; for Socrates is made to say in the same place (' Menon.,' 

 p. 373, ed. Bib.) that many others had followed the same profession 

 before him. He was, however, the first who gave lectures for pay. 



Amongst the scholars of Protagoras, the most remarkable were 

 Gorgias, of Leontium, who was chiefly celebrated for his eloquence 

 (whom Philostratus calls the ^Eschylus of sophists), and Prodicus, of 

 Ceos ; in the number of whose hearers were Euripides, Isocrates, 

 Xenophon, and Socrates himself, who is represented by Plato, as say- 

 ing to Meno, " You and I, Meno, it seems, are but poor creatures ; 

 Gorgias has given an indifferent education to you, and Prodicus to 

 me." It appears, however, from a passage in Plato's ' Cratylus,' 

 that Socrates could not afford to pay the sum, which Prodicus ex- 

 acted of those who were desirous of knowing the more recondite mys- 

 teries of his craft. He speaks of a lecture, 2 the price of which was 



1 Plato remarks, in the character of Theastetus, that, unless the sophists had 

 professed to communicate political knowledge, no one would have conversed with 

 them. This is a remarkable circumstance, inasmuch as it develops the real object 

 which their auditors had in view, viz. to acquire so great a proficiency in the 

 adroit management of affairs as might enable them to take the lead in the common- 

 wealth. Gorgias professed to communicate to his scholars the summum bonum, 

 viz. the art of persuasion, " by which men obtain the government over others in 

 their respective states." Plato, Gorg. p. 452. 



2 'Ewvlf/l/f, " a display." Plato, Gorg. p. 447, a. voXXos, xa< xaAa Tobias riftu 



