SOP 



SOPHIA, or Sofia, in Ceoi^raphy, a city of European 

 Turkey, in Bulgaria, built by Juftinian on the ruins of the 

 ancient Sardica. This is the capital of Bulgaria, and a 

 tingiacat ; the fee of a Greek archbifhop, and of a Roman 

 bilhop. It is commercial, populous, and well-built, but 

 without walls; and the ilreets are narrow, uneven, and 

 dirty : aSo miles W.N.W. of Conltantinople. N. lat. 42° 

 56'. E.long. 23'-' 14'. 



Sophia CInrurgorum, in Botany, a name foraetimes given 

 tea fpecies of water-crelles. 



SOPHIA I, in Geogiaphyy a town of RufTia, in the go- 

 Ternment of Petorfburg ; 16 miles S.S.E. of Pctertburg. 

 N. lat. 50° 4c'. E. long. 13' 14'. 



SOPH I ANA, a town ot Perfia, in the government of 

 Adirbeitzan, or Azerbijan ; 24 mile.^ N.W. of Tauris. 



SOPHIENBERG, a town of Denmark, in the ifland 

 of Zealand, near the coalt of the Sound, with a royal pa- 

 lace ; 13 miles N. of Copenhagen. 



SOPHIENBURG, a town of Germany, in the princi- 

 pality of Culmbach ; j miles S. of Bayreuth. 



SOPHIENLUST, a town of Germany, in the county 

 of Henneberg ; 3 miles S. of Meiiuingen. 



SOPHIS, or SoFEEs, denote a kind of order of reli- 

 gious among the Mahometans in Perfia, anfwering to what 

 are otherwife called dervijh ; and among the Arabs and In- 

 dians, faquirs. 



Some will have them called fophis, from a kind of coarfe 

 camblet which they wear, called fouf, from the city Sonf, 

 in Syria, where it is principally manufaftured. 



The more eminent of thele fophis are complimented with 

 the UtXe/chfik, that is, revfremi; much as in Romilh coun- 

 tries the religious are called reverend fathers. 



Sheick Sophi, who laid the firft foundation of the gran- 

 deur of the royal houfe of Perfia, was the founder, or rather 

 the reilorer, of this order : Khmael, who conquered Perfia, 

 washimfelf a iophi, and j;reatly valued himfelf oh liis being fo. 

 He chofe all the guards of his perfon from among the re- 

 ligious of this order ; and would have all the great lords of 

 his court fophis. 



The king of Perfia is ftill guard-matter of the order ; and 

 the lords continue to enter into it, though it be now fallen 

 under fome contempt. 



The vulgar I'ophis arc now chiefly employed as uihers and 

 attendants of the court ; and fome even as executioners of 

 juttice ; the emperor lall reigning would not allow them, ac- 

 cording to cuftom, to gird thefword on him. 



This negleft into which the fophis are funk, has occafioned 

 the late emperor to difufe the title aifophi, or fofi : however, 

 M. de la Croix is miftaken, when he fays, that they never 

 bore it. 



SOPHIS, Sofees, or Sufs, the denomination of a fetl of 

 modern philofophers among the Perfians, whofe name is de- 

 rived either from the Greek word for a fage, or from the 

 woollen mantle which they ufed to wear in fome provinces 

 of Perfia. They feem, fays fir William .Toues (Works, 

 vol. iii. p. 130. Svo. cd.) to have adopted that metaphyfical 

 theology, which has been profefled immemorially by a nu- 

 merous feft of Perfians and Hindoos, which was carried into 

 Greece, and which prevails, even at this time, among the 

 learned Mufiulmans, who fometimes avow it without referve. 

 Their fundamental tenets are, that nothing exills abfolutely 

 but God : that the human foul is an emanation from his 

 cfTence ; and, though feparated for a time from its heavenly 

 lource, will be finally reunited with it : that the higheft pof- 

 fible happinefs will arife from its reunion ; and that the chief 

 good of mankind, in this tranfitory world, confifts in as per- 

 fect an union with the eternal Spirit, as the incumbrances 



S O P 



of a mortal frame will allow : that, for this purpofe, tlxy 

 fhould break all conncdion with extrinfic objects, and paf» 

 through life without attachments, as a fvvimmer in the ocean 

 Itrikes freely without the impediment of clothes : that they 

 fhould be llraight and free as the cypref;;, whofe fruit is 

 hardly perceptible ; and not fink under a load, Uke fruit- 

 trees attached to a trellis : that, if mere earthly charms have 

 power to influence the fnil, the /We;; of celcltial beauty mult 

 overwhelm it in extatic delight : that, for want of apt words 

 to exprefs the divine perfections with the ardour of devotion, 

 we mull borrow fuch expreffions as approach the nearell to 

 our ideas, and fpeak of beauty and love in a tranfcendent and 

 myftical fenle : that, like a reed torn from its native bank, 

 like wax feparated from its delicious honey, the fuul of 

 man bewails its difunion with melancholy mujtc, and (beds 

 burning tears like the lighted taper, waiting paffionately for 

 the moment of its extinction, as a difengagement from 

 earthly trammels, and the means of returning to its only 

 Beloved. 



Such, in part, is the wild and enthufiaftic religion of the 

 modern Pcrfian poets, efpecially of the fweet Hatiz, and the 

 great Maulavi. Such is the fyftem of the Vedanti philofo- 

 phers, and belt lyric poets of India ; and, as it was a fyftem 

 of the higheft antiquity in both nations, it may be added to 

 many other proofs of an immemorial affinity between them. 

 The philofophy of the Sofees feems alfo, in early times, to 

 have prevailed amongft the Jews, in Europe among the Theo- 

 fophijls (fee that article), as well as among the difciples of the 

 Vedanti ichool in India. Sir William Jones has exprefled 

 with great precifion the tenets of the Indian fchool, nor do 

 they differ from the doftrines maintained by the Sofees of 

 the prefent day. The fundamental tenet of the Vedanti 

 fchool, fays fir W.Jones (Works, vol. lii. p. 239. 8vo. ed.) 

 to which, in a more modern age, the incomparable Sancara 

 was a firm and illuftrious adherent, confilted not in denying 

 the exiltence of matter ; that is, of folidity, impenetrability, 

 and extended figure ; but in corre£ting the popular notion of 

 it, and in contending that it has no eflence independent of 

 mental perception ; that exiilence and perceptibility are con- 

 vertible terms ; that external appearances and fenfatior.s are 

 illufory, and would vanilh into nothing, if the divine energy, 

 which alone fuftains them, were fufpended but for a moment, 

 an opinion which Epicharmus and Plato feem to have 

 adopted, and which has been maintained in the laft century, 

 and in our own country, with great elegance and acutenefs 

 by Berkeley and others. The Sofees confider themfelves, as 

 we have above ftated, immerfed in depravity by an union 

 with matter, and in the figurative llyle of their poets, la- 

 ment the feparation from their beloved, and folicit, with 

 impatient ardour, a releafe from a material and earthly 

 bondage. 



SOPHISM, So?i(7fi«, in Logic, a captious and fallacious 

 reafoning ; or an argument, which, with fome fubtlety, 

 carries much appearance of truth, but little folidity. See 



F.\LLACY. 



A fophifm is, properly, an argument falfe at bottom, 

 and only invented to amufe and embarrafs the perfon to 

 whom it is ufed. 



Logicians enumerate the following kinds of fophifm, viz. 

 ignaratio elenchi, or a miitake of the queftion, i. e. when 

 fomething elfe is proved, which has neither any necelTary 

 conneAion nor inconfiltency with the thing inquired, and 

 confequently gives no determination to the inquiry, though 

 at firft fight it may feem to determine the queftion ; petitio 

 principii ; a circle ; non caufa pro caufa, or the aflignation 

 of a falfe caufe ; fallacia accidentis, which pronounces con- 

 cerning the nature and eflential properties of any fubjeft, 



according 



