Volume 8 — CHAPTER LXVII. THE DRAMA. — RHETORIC AND DIALECTICS. — THE SOPHISTS. (continued 2)

Welcker and other modern authors treat Prodikus as “the most innocent” of the sophists, and except him from the sentence which they pass upon the class generally. Let us see, therefore, what Plato himself says about the rest of them, and first about Protagoras. If it were not the established practice with readers of Plato to condemn Protagoras beforehand, and to put upon every passage relating to him not only a sense as bad as it will bear, but much worse than it will fairly bear, they would probably carry away very different inferences from the Platonic dialogue called by that sophist’s name, and in which he is made to bear a chief part. That dialogue is itself enough to prove that Plato did not conceive Protagoras either as a corrupt, or unworthy, or incompetent teacher. The course of the dialogue exhibits him as not master of the theory of ethics, and unable to solve various difficulties with which that theory is expected to grapple; moreover, as no match for Sokratês in dialectics, which Plato considered as the only efficient method of philosophical investigation. In so far, therefore, as imperfect acquaintance with the science or theory upon which rules of art, or the precepts bearing on practice, repose, disqualifies a teacher from giving instruction in such art or practice, to that extent Protagoras is exposed as wanting. And if an expert dialectician, like Plato, had passed Isokratês or Quintilian, or the large majority of teachers past or present, through a similar cross-examination as to the theory of their teaching, an ignorance not less manifest than that of Protagoras would be brought out. The antithesis which Plato sets forth, in so many of his dialogues, between precept or practice, accompanied by full knowledge of the scientific principles from which it must be deduced, if its rectitude be disputed,—and unscientific practice, without any such power of deduction or defence, is one of the most valuable portions of his speculations: he exhausts his genius to render it conspicuous in a thousand indirect ways, and to shame his readers, if possible, into the loftier and more rational walk of thought. But it is one thing to say of a man, that he does not know the theory of what he teaches, or of the way in which he teaches; it is another thing to say, that he actually teaches that which scientific theory would not prescribe as the best; it is a third thing, graver than both, to say that his teaching is not only below the exigences of science, but even corrupt and demoralizing. Now of these three points, it is the first only which Plato in his dialogue makes out against Protagoras: even the second, he neither affirms nor insinuates; and as to the third, not only he never glances at it, even indirectly, but the whole tendency of the discourse suggests a directly contrary conclusion. As if sensible that when an eminent opponent was to be depicted as puzzled and irritated by superior dialectics, it was but common fairness to set forth his distinctive merits also, Plato gives a fable, and expository harangue, from the mouth of Protagoras,[597] upon the question whether virtue is teachable. This harangue is, in my judgment, very striking and instructive; and so it would have been probably accounted, if commentators had not read it with a preëstablished persuasion that whatever came from the lips of a sophist must be either ridiculous or immoral.[598] It is the only part of Plato’s works wherein any account is rendered of the growth of that floating, uncertified, self-propagating body of opinion, upon which the cross-examining analysis of Sokratês is brought to bear, as will be seen in the following chapter.

Protagoras professes to teach his pupils “good counsel” in their domestic and family relations, as well as how to speak and act in the most effective manner for the weal of the city. Since this comes from Protagoras, the commentators of Plato pronounce it to be miserable morality; but it coincides, almost to the letter, with that which Isokratês describes himself as teaching, a generation afterwards, and substantially even with that which Xenophon represents Sokratês as teaching; nor is it easy to set forth, in a few words, a larger scheme of practical duty.[599] And if the measure of practical duty, which Protagoras devoted himself to teach, was thus serious and extensive, even the fraction of theory assigned to him in his harangue, includes some points better than that of Plato himself. For Plato seems to have conceived the ethical end, to each individual, as comprising nothing more than his own permanent happiness and moral health; and in this very dialogue, he introduces Sokratês as maintaining virtue to consist only in a right calculation of a man’s own personal happiness and misery. But here we find Protagoras speaking in a way which implies a larger, and, in my opinion, a juster, appreciation of the ethical end, as including not only reference to a man’s own happiness, but also obligations towards the happiness of others. Without at all agreeing in the harsh terms of censure which various critics pronounce upon that theory which Sokratês is made to set forth in the Platonic Protagoras, I consider his conception of the ethical end essentially narrow and imperfect, not capable of being made to serve as basis for deduction of the best ethical precepts. Yet such is the prejudice with which the history of the sophists has been written, that the commentators on Plato accuse the sophists of having originated what they ignorantly term, “the base theory of utility,” here propounded by Sokratês himself; complimenting the latter on having set forth those larger views which in this dialogue belong only to Protagoras.[600]

So far as concerns Protagoras, therefore, the evidence of Plato himself may be produced to show that he was not a corrupt teacher, but a worthy companion of Prodikus; worthy also of that which we know him to have enjoyed, the society and conversation of Periklês. Let us now examine what Plato says about a third sophist, Hippias of Elis; who figures both in the dialogue called “Protagoras,” and in two distinct dialogues known by the titles of “Hippias Major and Minor.” Hippias is represented as distinguished for the wide range of his accomplishments, of which in these dialogues he ostentatiously boasts. He could teach astronomy, geometry, and arithmetic, which subjects Protagoras censured him for enforcing too much upon his pupils; so little did these sophists agree in any one scheme of doctrine or education. Besides this, he was a poet, a musician, an expositor of the poets, and a lecturer with a large stock of composed matter,—on subjects moral, political, and even legendary,—treasured up in a very retentive memory. He was a citizen much employed as envoy by his fellow-citizens: to crown all, his manual dexterity was such that he professed to have made with his own hands all the attire and ornaments which he wore on his person. If, as is sufficiently probable, he was a vain and ostentatious man,—defects not excluding an useful and honorable career,—we must at the same time give him credit for a variety of acquisitions such as to explain a certain measure of vanity.[601] The style in which Plato handles Hippias is very different from that in which he treats Protagoras. It is full of sneer and contemptuous banter, insomuch that even Stallbaum,[602] after having repeated a great many times that this was a vile sophist, who deserved no better treatment, is forced to admit that the petulance is carried rather too far, and to suggest that the dialogue must have been a juvenile work of Plato. Be this as it may, amidst so much unfriendly handling, not only we find no imputation against Hippias, of having preached a low or corrupt morality, but Plato inserts that which furnishes good, though indirect, proof of the contrary. For Hippias is made to say that he had already delivered, and was about to deliver again, a lecture composed by himself with great care, wherein he enlarged upon the aims and pursuits which a young man ought to follow. The scheme of his discourse was, that after the capture of Troy, the youthful Neoptolemus was introduced as asking the advice of Nestor about his own future conduct; in reply to which, Nestor sets forth to him what was the plan of life incumbent on a young man of honorable aspirations, and unfolds to him the full details of regulated and virtuous conduct by which it ought to be filled up.[603] The selection of two such names, among the most venerated in all Grecian legend, as monitor and pupil, is a stamp clearly attesting the vein of sentiment which animated the composition. Morality preached by Nestor for the edification of Neoptolemus, might possibly be too high for Athenian practice; but most certainly it would not err on the side of corruption, selfishness, or over-indulgence. We may fairly presume that this discourse composed by Hippias would not be unworthy, in spirit and purpose, to be placed by the side of “The Choice of Hercules,” nor its author by that of Prodikus as a moral teacher.

The dialogue entitled “Gorgias,” in Plato, is carried on by Sokratês with three different persons one after the other,—Gorgias, Pôlus, and Kalliklês. Gorgias of Leontini in Sicily, as a rhetorical teacher, acquired greater celebrity than any man of his time, during the Peloponnesian war: his abundant powers of illustration, his florid ornaments, his artificial structure of sentences distributed into exact antithetical fractions, all spread a new fashion in the art of speaking, which for the time was very popular, but afterwards became discredited. If the line could be clearly drawn between rhetors and sophists, Gorgias ought rather to be ranked with the former.[604] In the conversation with Gorgias, Sokratês exposes the fallacy and imposture of rhetoric and rhetorical teaching, as cheating an ignorant audience into persuasion without knowledge, and as framed to satisfy the passing caprice, without any regard to the permanent welfare and improvement of the people. Whatever real inculpation may be conveyed in these arguments against a rhetorical teacher, Gorgias must bear in common with Isokratês and Quintilian, and under the shield of Aristotle. But save and except rhetorical teaching, no dissemination of corrupt morality is ascribed to him by Plato; who, indeed, treats him with a degree of respect which surprises the commentators.[605]

The tone of the dialogue changes materially when it passes to Pôlus and Kalliklês, the former of whom is described as a writer on rhetoric, and probably a teacher also.[606] There is much insolence in Pôlus, and no small asperity in Sokratês. Yet the former maintains no arguments which justify the charge of immorality against himself or his fellow-teachers. He defends the tastes and sentiments common to every man in Greece, and shared even by the most estimable Athenians, Periklês, Nikias, and Aristokratês;[607] while Sokratês prides himself on standing absolutely alone, and having no support except from his irresistible dialectics, whereby he is sure of extorting reluctant admission from his adversary. How far Sokratês may be right, I do not now inquire: it is sufficient that Pôlus, standing as he does amidst company at once so numerous and so irreproachable, cannot be fairly denounced as a poisoner of the youthful mind.

Pôlus presently hands over the dialogue to Kalliklês, who is here represented, doubtless, as laying down doctrines openly and avowedly anti-social. He distinguishes between the law of nature and the law—both written and unwritten, for the Greek word substantially includes both—of society. According to the law of nature, Kalliklês says, the strong man—the better or more capable man—puts forth his strength to the full for his own advantage, without limit or restraint; overcomes the resistance which weaker men are able to offer; and seizes for himself as much as he pleases of the matter of enjoyment. He has no occasion to restrain any of his appetites or desires; the more numerous and pressing they are, so much the better for him, since his power affords him the means of satiating them all. The many, who have the misfortune to be weak, must be content with that which he leaves them, and submit to it as best they can. This, Kalliklês says, is what actually happens in a state of nature; this is what is accounted just, as is evident by the practice of independent communities, not included in one common political society, towards each other; this is justice, by nature, or according to the law of nature. But when men come into society, all this is reversed. The majority of individuals know very well that they are weak, and that their only chance of security or comfort consists in establishing laws to restrain this strong man, reinforced by a moral sanction of praise and blame devoted to the same general end. They catch him, like a young lion, whilst his mind is yet tender, and fascinate him by talk and training into a disposition conformable to that measure and equality which the law enjoins. Here, then, is justice according to the law of society; a factitious system, built up by the many for their own protection and happiness, to the subversion of the law of nature, which arms the strong man with a right to encroachment and license. Let a fair opportunity occur, and the favorite of Nature will be seen to kick off his harness, tread down the laws, break through the magic circle of opinion around him, and stand forth again as lord and master of the many; regaining that glorious position which nature has assigned to him as his right. Justice by nature, and justice by law and society, are thus, according to Kalliklês, not only distinct, but mutually contradictory. He accuses Sokratês of having jumbled the two together in his argument.[608]

It has been contended by many authors that this anti-social reasoning—true enough, in so far as it states simple[609] matter of fact and probability; immoral, in so far as it erects the power of the strong man into a right; and inviting many comments, if I could find a convenient place for them—represents the morality commonly and publicly taught by the persons called sophists at Athens.[610] I deny this assertion emphatically. Even if I had no other evidence to sustain my denial, except what has been already extracted, from the unfriendly writings of Plato himself, respecting Protagoras and Hippias,—with what we know from Xenophon about Prodikus,—I should consider my case made out as vindicating the sophists generally from such an accusation. If refutation to the doctrine of Kalliklês were needed, it would be obtained quite as efficaciously from Prodikus and Protagoras as from Sokratês and Plato.

But this is not the strongest part of the vindication.

First, Kalliklês himself is not a sophist, nor represented by Plato as such. He is a young Athenian citizen, of rank and station, belonging to the deme Acharnæ; he is intimate with other young men of condition in the city, has recently entered into active political life, and bends his whole soul towards it; he disparages philosophy, and speaks with utter contempt about the sophists.[611] If, then, it were even just, which I do not admit, to infer from opinions put into the mouth of one sophist, that the same were held by another or by all of them, it would not be the less unjust to draw the like inference from opinions professed by one who is not a sophist, and who despises the whole profession.

Secondly, if any man will read attentively the course of the dialogue, he will see that the doctrine of Kalliklês is such as no one dared publicly to propound. So it is conceived both by Kalliklês himself, and by Sokratês. The former first takes up the conversation, by saying that his predecessor Pôlus had become entangled in a contradiction, because he had not courage enough openly to announce an unpopular and odious doctrine; but he, Kalliklês, was less shamefaced, and would speak out boldly that doctrine which others kept to themselves for fear of shocking the hearers. “Certainly (says Sokratês to him) your audacity is abundantly shown by the doctrine which you have just laid down; you set forth plainly that which other people think, but do not choose to utter.”[612] Now, opinions of which Pôlus, an insolent young man, was afraid to proclaim himself the champion, must have been revolting indeed to the sentiments of hearers. How then can any reasonable man believe, that such opinions were not only openly propounded, but seriously inculcated as truth upon audiences of youthful hearers, by the sophists? We know that the teaching of the latter was public in the highest degree; publicity was pleasing as well as profitable to them; among the many disparaging epithets heaped upon them, ostentation and vanity are two of the most conspicuous. Whatever they taught, they taught publicly; and I contend, with full conviction, that, had they even agreed with Kalliklês in this opinion, they could neither have been sufficiently audacious, nor sufficiently their own enemies, to make it a part of their public teaching; but would have acted like Pôlus, and kept the doctrine to themselves.

Thirdly, this latter conclusion will be rendered doubly certain, when we consider of what city we are now speaking. Of all places in the world, the democratical Athens is the last in which the doctrine advanced by Kalliklês could possibly have been professed by a public teacher; or even by Kalliklês himself, in any public meeting. It is unnecessary to remind the reader how profoundly democratical was the sentiment and morality of the Athenians,—how much they loved their laws, their constitution, and their political equality,—how jealous their apprehension was of any nascent or threatening despotism. All this is not simply admitted, but even exaggerated, by Mr. Mitford, Wachsmuth, and other anti-democratical writers, who often draw from it materials for their abundant censures. Now the very point which Sokratês, in this dialogue, called “Gorgias,” seeks to establish against Kalliklês, against the rhetors, and against the sophists, is, that they courted, flattered, and truckled to the sentiment of the Athenian people, with degrading subservience; that they looked to the immediate gratification simply, and not to permanent moral improvement of the people; that they had not courage to address to them any unpalatable truths, however salutary, but would shift and modify opinions in every way, so as to escape giving offence;[613] that no man who put himself prominently forward at Athens had any chance of success, unless he became moulded and assimilated, from the core, to the people and their type of sentiment[614]. Granting such charges to be true, how is it conceivable that any sophist, or any rhetor, could venture to enforce upon an Athenian public audience the doctrine laid down by Kalliklês? To tell such an audience: “Your laws and institutions are all violations of the law of nature, contrived to disappoint the Alkibiadês or Napoleon among you of his natural right to become your master, and to deal with you petty men as his slaves. All your unnatural precautions, and conventional talk, in favor of legality and equal dealing, will turn out to be nothing better than pitiful impotence[615], as soon as he finds a good opportunity of standing forward in his full might and energy, so as to put you into your proper places, and show you what privileges Nature intends for her favorites!” Conceive such a doctrine propounded by a lecturer to assembled Athenians! A doctrine just as revolting to Nikias as to Kleon, and which even Alkibiadês would be forced to affect to disapprove; since it is not simply anti-popular, not simply despotic, but the drunken extravagance of despotism. The Great man, as depicted by Kalliklês, stands in the same relation to ordinary mortals, as Jonathan Wild the Great, in the admirable parody of Fielding.

That sophists, whom Plato accuses of slavish flattery to the democratical ear, should gratuitously insult it by the proposition of such tenets, is an assertion not merely untrue, but utterly absurd. Even as to Sokratês, we know from Xenophon how much the Athenians were offended with him, and how much it was urged by the accusers on his trial, that in his conversations he was wont to cite with peculiar relish the description, in the second book of the Iliad, of Odysseus following the Grecian crowd, when running away from the agora to get on shipboard, and prevailing upon them to come back, by gentle words addressed to the chiefs, but by blows of his stick, accompanied with contemptuous reprimand, to the common people. The indirect evidence thus afforded, that Sokratês countenanced unequal dealing and ill usage towards the many, told much against him in the minds of the dikasts. What would they have felt then towards a sophist who publicly professed the political morality of Kalliklês? The truth is, not only was it impossible that any such morality, or anything of the same type even much diluted, could find its way into the educational lectures of professors at Athens, but the fear would be in the opposite direction. If the sophist erred in either way, it would be in that which Sokratês imputes, by making his lectures over-democratical. Nay, if we suppose any opportunity to have arisen of discussing the doctrine of Kalliklês, he would hardly omit to flatter the ears of the surrounding democrats by enhancing the beneficent results of legality and equal dealing, and by denouncing this “natural despot,” or undisclosed Napoleon, as one who must either take his place under such restraints, or find a place in some other city.

I have thus shown, even from Plato himself, that the doctrine ascribed to Kalliklês neither did enter, nor could have entered, into the lectures of a sophist or professed teacher. The same conclusion may be maintained respecting the doctrine of Thrasymachus in the first book of the “Republic.” Thrasymachus was a rhetorical teacher, who had devised precepts respecting the construction of an oration and the training of young men for public speaking. It is most probable that he confined himself, like Gorgias, to this department, and that he did not profess to give moral lectures, like Protagoras and Prodikus. But granting him to have given such, he would not talk about justice in the way in which Plato makes him talk, if he desired to give any satisfaction to an Athenian audience. The mere brutality and ferocious impudence of demeanor even to exaggeration, with which Plato invests him, is in itself a strong proof that the doctrine, ushered in with such a preface, was not that of a popular and acceptable teacher, winning favor in public audiences. He defines justice to be “the interest of the superior power; that rule, which, in every society, the dominant power prescribes, as being for its own advantage.” A man is just, he says, for the advantage of another, not for his own: he is weak, cannot help himself, and must submit to that which the stronger authority, whether despot, oligarchy, or commonwealth, commands.

This theory is essentially different from the doctrine of Kalliklês, as set forth a few pages back; for Thrasymachus does not travel out of society to insist upon anterior rights dating from a supposed state of nature; he takes societies as he finds them, recognizing the actual governing authority of each as the canon and constituent of justice or injustice. Stallbaum and other writers have incautiously treated the two theories as if they were the same; and with something even worse than want of caution, while they pronounce the theory of Thrasymachus to be detestably immoral, announce it as having been propounded not by him only, but by The Sophists; thus, in their usual style, dealing with the sophists as if they were a school, sect, or partnership with mutual responsibility. Whoever has followed the evidence which I have produced respecting Protagoras and Prodikus, will know how differently these latter handled the question of justice.

But the truth is, that the theory of Thrasymachus, though incorrect and defective, is not so detestable as these writers represent. What makes it seem detestable, is the style and manner in which he is made to put it forward; which causes the just man to appear petty and contemptible, while it surrounds the unjust man with enviable attributes. Now this is precisely the circumstance which revolts the common sentiments of mankind, as it revolts also the critics who read what is said by Thrasymachus. The moral sentiments exist in men’s minds in complex and powerful groups, associated with some large words and emphatic forms of speech. Whether an ethical theory satisfies the exigencies of reason, or commands and answers to all the phenomena, a common audience will seldom give themselves the trouble to consider with attention; but what they imperiously exact, and what is indispensable to give the theory any chance of success, is, that it shall exhibit to their feelings the just man as respectable and dignified, and the unjust man as odious and repulsive. Now that which offends in the language ascribed to Thrasymachus is, not merely the absence, but the reversal, of this condition; the presentation of the just man as weak and silly, and of injustice in all the prestige of triumph and dignity. And for this very reason, I venture to infer that such a theory was never propounded by Thrasymachus to any public audience in the form in which it appears in Plato. For Thrasymachus was a rhetor, who had studied the principles of his art: now we know that these common sentiments of an audience, were precisely what the rhetors best understood, and always strove to conciliate. Even from the time of Gorgias, they began the practice of composing beforehand declamations upon the general heads of morality, which were ready to be introduced into actual speeches as occasion presented itself, and in which appeal was made to the moral sentiments foreknown as common, with more or less of modification, to all the Grecian assemblies. The real Thrasymachus, addressing any audience at Athens, would never have wounded these sentiments, as the Platonic Thrasymachus is made to do in the “Republic.” Least of all would he have done this, if it be true of him, as Plato asserts of the rhetors and sophists generally, that they thought about nothing but courting popularity, without any sincerity of conviction.

Though Plato thinks fit to bring out the opinion of Thrasymachus with accessories unnecessarily offensive, and thus to enhance the dialectical triumph of Sokratês by the brutal manners of the adversary, he was well aware that he had not done justice to the opinion itself, much less confuted it. The proof of this is, that in the second book of the “Republic,” after Thrasymachus has disappeared, the very same opinion is taken up by Glaukon and Adeimantus, and set forth by both of them, though they disclaim entertaining it as their own, as suggesting grave doubts and difficulties which they desire to hear solved by Sokratês. Those who read attentively the discourses of Glaukon and Adeimantus, will see that the substantive opinion ascribed to Thrasymachus, apart from the brutality with which he is made to state it, does not even countenance the charge of immoral teaching against him, much less against the sophists generally. Hardly anything in Plato’s compositions is more powerful than those discourses. They present, in a perspicuous and forcible manner, some of the most serious difficulties with which ethical theory is required to grapple. And Plato can answer them only in one way, by taking society to pieces, and reconstructing it in the form of his imaginary republic. The speeches of Glaukon and Adeimantus form the immediate preface to the striking and elaborate description which he goes through, of his new state of society, nor do they receive any other answer than what is implied in that description. Plato indirectly confesses that he cannot answer them, assuming social institutions to continue unreformed: and his reform is sufficiently fundamental.[616]

I call particular attention to this circumstance, without which we cannot fairly estimate the sophists, or practical teachers of Athens, face to face with their accuser-general, Plato. He was a great and systematic theorist, whose opinions on ethics, politics, cognition, religion, etc., were all wrought into harmony by his own mind, and stamped with that peculiarity which is the mark of an original intellect. So splendid an effort of speculative genius is among the marvels of the Grecian world. His dissent from all the societies which he saw around him, not merely democratical, but oligarchical and despotic also, was of the deepest and most radical character. Nor did he delude himself by the belief, that any partial amendment of that which he saw around could bring about the end which he desired: he looked to nothing short of a new genesis of the man and the citizen, with institutions calculated from the beginning to work out the full measure of perfectibility. His fertile scientific imagination realized this idea in the “Republic.” But that very systematic and original character, which lends so much value and charm to the substantive speculations of Plato, counts as a deduction from his trustworthiness as critic or witness, in reference to the living agents whom he saw at work in Athens and other cities, as statesmen, generals, or teachers. His criticisms are dictated by his own point of view, according to which the entire society was corrupt, and all the instruments who carried on its functions were of essentially base metal. Whoever will read either the “Gorgias” or the “Republic,” will see in how sweeping and indiscriminate a manner he passes his sentence of condemnation. Not only all the sophists and all the rhetors,[617] but all the musicians and dithyrambic or tragic poets; all the statesmen, past as well as present, not excepting even the great Periklês, receive from his hands one common stamp of dishonor. Every one of these men are numbered by Plato among the numerous category of flatterers, who minister to the immediate gratification and to the desires of the people, without looking to their permanent improvement, or making them morally better. “Periklês and Kimon (says Sokratês in the “Gorgias”) are nothing but servants or ministers who supply the immediate appetites and tastes of the people; just as the baker and the confectioner do in their respective departments, without knowing or caring whether the food will do any real good, a point which the physician alone can determine. As ministers, they are clever enough: they have provided the city amply with tribute, walls, docks, ships, and such other follies: but I (Sokratês) am the only man in Athens who aim, so far as my strength permits, at the true purpose of politics, the mental improvement of the people.”[618] So wholesale a condemnation betrays itself as the offspring, and the consistent offspring, of systematic peculiarity of vision, the prejudice of a great and able mind.

It would be not less unjust to appreciate the sophists or the statesmen of Athens from the point of view of Plato, than the present teachers and politicians of England or France from that of Mr. Owen or Fourier. Both the one and the other class labored for society as it stood at Athens: the statesmen carried on the business of practical politics, the sophist trained up youth for practical life in all its departments, as family men, citizens, and leaders, to obey as well as to command. Both accepted the system as it stood, without contemplating the possibility of a new birth of society: both ministered to certain exigences, held their anchorage upon certain sentiments, and bowed to a certain morality, actually felt among the living men around them. That which Plato says of the statesmen of Athens is perfectly true, that they were only servants or ministers of the people. He, who tried the people and the entire society by comparison with an imaginary standard of his own, might deem all these ministers worthless in the lump, as carrying on a system too bad to be mended; but, nevertheless, the difference between a competent and an incompetent minister, between Periklês and Nikias, was of unspeakable moment to the security and happiness of the Athenians. What the sophists on their part undertook was, to educate young men so as to make them better qualified for statesmen or ministers; and Protagoras would have thought it sufficient honor to himself,—as well as sufficient benefit to Athens, which assuredly it would have been,—if he could have inspired any young Athenian with the soul and the capacities of his friend and companion Periklês.

So far is Plato from considering the sophists as the corruptors of Athenian morality, that he distinctly protests against that supposition, in a remarkable passage of the “Republic.” It is, he says, the whole people, or the society, with its established morality, intelligence, and tone of sentiment, which is intrinsically vicious; the teachers of such a society must be vicious also, otherwise their teaching would not be received; and even if their private teaching were ever so good, its effect would be washed away, except in some few privileged natures, by the overwhelming deluge of pernicious social influences.[619] Nor let any one imagine, as modern readers are but too ready to understand it, that this poignant censure is intended for Athens so far forth as a democracy. Plato was not the man to preach king-worship, or wealth-worship, as social or political remedies: he declares emphatically that not one of the societies then existing was such that a truly philosophical nature could be engaged in active functions under it.[620] These passages would be alone sufficient to repel the assertions of those who denounce the sophists as poisoners of Athenian morality, on the alleged authority of Plato.

Nor is it at all more true that they were men of mere words, and made their pupils no better,—a charge just as vehemently pressed against Sokratês as against the sophists,—and by the same class of enemies, such as Anytus,[621] Aristophanês, Eupolis, etc. It was mainly from sophists like Hippias that the Athenian youth learned what they knew of geometry, astronomy, and arithmetic: but the range of what is called special science, possessed even by the teacher, was at that time very limited; and the matter of instruction communicated was expressed under the general title of “Words, or Discourses,” which were always taught by the sophists, in connection with thought, and in reference to a practical use. The capacities of thought, speech, and action, are conceived in conjunction by Greeks generally, and by teachers like Isokratês and Quintilian especially; and when young men in Greece, like the Bœotian Proxenus, put themselves under training by Gorgias or any other sophist, it was with a view of qualifying themselves, not merely to speak, but to act.[622]

Most of the pupils of the sophists, as of Sokratês[623] himself, were young men of wealth; a fact, at which Plato sneers, and others copy him, as if it proved that they cared only about high pay. But I do not hesitate to range myself on the side of Isokratês,[624] and to contend that the sophist himself had much to lose by corrupting his pupils,—an argument used by Sokratês in defending himself before the dikastery, and just as valid in defence of Protagoras or Prodikus,[625]—and strong personal interest in sending them forth accomplished and virtuous; that the best-taught youth were decidedly the most free from crime and the most active towards good; that among the valuable ideas and feelings which a young Athenian had in his mind, as well as among the good pursuits which he followed, those which he learned from the sophists counted nearly as the best; that, if the contrary had been the fact, fathers would not have continued so to send their sons, and pay their money. It was not merely that these teachers countervailed in part the temptations to dissipated enjoyment, but also that they were personally unconcerned in the acrimonious slander and warfare of party in his native city; that the topics with which they familiarized him were, the general interests and duties of men and citizens; that they developed the germs of morality in the ancient legends, as in Prodikus’s fable, and amplified in his mind all the undefined cluster of associations connected with the great words of morality; that they vivified in him the sentiment of Pan-Hellenic brotherhood; and that, in teaching him the art of persuasion,[626] they could not but make him feel the dependence in which he stood towards those who were to be persuaded, together with the necessity under which he lay of so conducting himself as to conciliate their good-will.

The intimations given in Plato, of the enthusiastic reception which Protagoras, Prodikus, and other sophists[627] met with in the various cities; the description which we read, in the dialogue called Protagoras, of the impatience of the youthful Hippokratês, on hearing of the arrival of that sophist, insomuch that he awakens Sokratês before daylight, in order to obtain an introduction to the new-comer and profit by his teaching; the readiness of such rich young men to pay money, and to devote time and trouble, for the purpose of acquiring a personal superiority apart from their wealth and station; the ardor with which Kallias is represented as employing his house for the hospitable entertainment, and his fortune for the aid, of the sophists; all this makes upon my mind an impression directly the reverse of that ironical and contemptuous phraseology with which it is set forth by Plato. Such sophists had nothing to recommend them except superior knowledge and intellectual force, combined with an imposing personality, making itself felt in their lectures and conversation. It is to this that the admiration was shown; and the fact that it was so shown, brings to view the best attributes of the Greek, especially the Athenian mind. It exhibits those qualities of which Periklês made emphatic boast in his celebrated funeral oration;[628] conception of public speech as a practical thing, not meant as an excuse for inaction, but combined with energetic action, and turning it to good account by full and open discussion beforehand; profound sensibility to the charm of manifested intellect, without enervating the powers of execution or endurance. Assuredly, a man like Protagoras, arriving in a city with all this train of admiration laid before him, must have known very little of his own interest or position, if he began to preach a low or corrupt morality. If it be true generally, as Voltaire has remarked, that “any man who should come to preach a relaxed morality would be pelted,” much more would it be true of a sophist like Protagoras, arriving in a foreign city with all the prestige of a great intellectual name, and with the imagination of youths on fire to hear and converse with him, that any similar doctrine would destroy his reputation at once. Numbers of teachers have made their reputation by inculcating overstrained asceticism; it will be hard to find an example of success in the opposite vein.