660 PROFESSOR BLACKIE ON THE SOPHISTS 



mentis disputandi artem publice exercebant, sed et magnificis earn promissis nobilem 

 juventutem brevi tempore se docturos pollicebantur. Quae eo ardentius ad hos 

 nugatores deproperabat, quod ita se utilissimam rationem discere posse speraret, 

 popidum in suas partes trahendi, et ex civium ad quos loquendum erat, judicAo, et 

 calculo summam rerum ad se trahendi, vel etiam in potestate semel acquisita, fiexo 

 populi per istam eloquentiam obsequio, se confirmandii 1 ' And Gillies, in his well- 

 known " History of Greece," vol. ii. p. 133, says, in distinct antithesis to Mr Grote, 

 that the " appellation Sophist, in its modern sense, pretty faithfully expresses 

 their character," and that " their morality supplied the springs from which 

 Epicurus watered his gardens, and their captious logic furnished the arguments 

 by which Pyrrho laboured to justify his scepticism." 



Now, in reference to these opposing views, my assertion is, that the old view, 

 though not exhaustive of the whole truth of the matter, and not recognising cer- 

 tain modifications which tend to soften the harsher lines of the portrait, is on the 

 whole the right view ; while the new view, if containing an element of correction 

 in some secondary points, is on the whole a false and misleading view, or rather a 

 total misrepresentation and inversion of the facts of the case. The proof may be 

 given, disposing of Mr Grote's six arguments in their order, as follows : — 



(1.) The general character of the Sophists, in their capacity of public teachers, 

 is in no wise affected by the fact that there were great differences in their per- 

 sonal characters, and that some of them, like Protagoras, were, as the world goes, 

 most respectable and reputable men. The scribes and Pharisees in the Gospel 

 history were respectable and reputable enough, no doubt, or had at least many 

 most respectable and reputable men in their body ; but not the less were their 

 doctrines false and their teaching pernicious. So much only we may grant to the 

 learned historian, that if any one ever said that there were no men of average 

 respectability among the Sophists, such an assertion is altogether unwarranted, 

 and is contrary to the plainest indications on the very surface of Plato. 



(2.) A similar admission may be made with regard to the historical signifi- 

 cance of the Sophists generally, without, in the slightest degree, trenching on the 

 ground occupied by Plato. That the Sophists, like everything else in the world, 

 had their good side, might have been assumed, if it could not have been proved ; 

 and it is equally certain, that when once a body of men like the Sophists, or the 

 scribes and Pharisees, or the Romish priests, gets a bad name, the defects of 

 character out of which that bad name arose are apt to occupy the whole of the 

 canvass in historical tradition, while their virtues are altogether forgotten, or even 

 denied. Hence arises a necessity for a sort of justification; a justification, how- 

 ever, which, while it may be allowed slightly to qualify, does not in any wise 

 nullify the unfavourable character of the original verdict. A sort of plea in 

 extenuation of this class of men was therefore, in the very nature of the case, to 

 have been expected; and lam indebted to Professor Zeller's admirable Geschichte 



