112 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 



must have shown itself early. Neither could have entirely sympa- 

 thised with the other, however much he might admire his genius ; and 

 this circumstance may very well have produced a certain estrangement, 

 which by such of their followers as were of too vulgar minds to under- 

 stand the respect which all really great men must entertain for each 

 other, would readily be misinterpreted. Difference of opinion would, 

 if proceeding from an equal , be represented in the light of hostility, 

 if from a former pupil, in that of ingratitude. The miserable spirit of 

 partisanship prevailing among the Greeks, which is so strongly repro- 

 bated by Cicero, 1 rapidly gave birth to tales which at first probably 

 were meant only to illustrate the preconceived notions which they 

 were in course of time employed to confirm. And so, if Plato had 

 ever made a remark in the same sense and spirit as Waller's epigram 

 to a lady singing one of his own songs, 2 this might very easily in its 

 passage through inferior and ungenial minds have been distorted into 

 the bitter reflection we have noticed above. 



Hostility Respecting the relation between Aristotle and another celebrated 



Stotfeand contemporary of his, there can be no manner of doubt. All accounts 

 isocrates. agree with the inference we should draw from what we find on the 

 subject in his works, that between him and Isocrates the rhetorician, 

 there subsisted a most cordial dislike, accompanied, on the part of the 

 former at least, with as cordial a contempt. Isocrates was, in fact, a 

 sophist of by no means a high order. He did not possess the clever- 

 ness which enabled many of that class to put forth a claim to universal 

 knowledge, and under many circumstances to maintain it successfully. 

 He professed to teach nothing but the art of oratory ; but his want of 

 comprehensiveness was not compensated by any superior degree of ac- 

 curacy or depth. Oratory, according to his view, was the art of making 

 what was important appear trivial, and what was trivial appear im- 

 portant in other words, of proving black white and white black. 

 He taught this* accomplishment not on any principles even pretending 

 to be scientific, but by mere practice in the school, 3 like fencing or 

 boxing. Indignation at this miserable substitute for philosophical in- 

 stitution, and at the undeserved reputation which its author had ac- 

 quired, found vent with Aristotle in the application of a sentiment 4 

 which Euripides in his ' Philoctetes,' a play now lost, put into the 

 mouth of Ulysses. He resolved himself to take up the subject, and 

 his success was so great that Cicero appears to regard it as one of the 



1 "Sit ista in Grcecorum levitate perversitas, qui maledictis insectantur eos, a 

 quibus de veritate dissentiunt." De Finibus, ii. 25. 



2 The eagle's fate and mine are one, 



Who, on the shaft that made him die, 

 Espied a feather of his own, 



Wherewith he wont to soar so high. 



3 ou pd'obs? xx' do-xvffti. Pseudo-Plutarch, Vit. Isocr. p. 838. Compare Cicero, 

 De Invent, ii. 2; Brut. 12. 



4 al<r%ov <riuir$v, fiagficigovs $' lav t.tytiv. Aristotle substituted the word 'I 



