Note 11 — Chapter VII · PLATONIC CANON AS APPRECIATED AND MODIFIED BY MODERN CRITICS.

Ueberweg (Untersuchungen, pp. 50-52) has collected several citations from K. F. Hermann, in which the latter treats Schleiermacher “wie einen Sophisten, der sich in absichtlicher Unwahrhaftigkeit gefalle, mitunter fast als einen Mann der innerlich wohl wisse, wie die Sache stehe (nämlich, dass sie so sei, wie Hermann lehrt), der sich aber, etwa aus Lust, seine überlegene Dialektik zu beweisen, Mühe gebe, sie in einem anderen Lichte erscheinen zu lassen; also — το ἥττω λόγον κρείττω ποιεῖν — recht in rhetorisch sophistischer Manier.”

We know well, from other and independent evidence, what Schleiermacher really was, that he was not only one of the most accomplished scholars, but one of the most liberal and estimable men of his age. But how different would be our appreciation if we had no other evidence to judge by except the dicta of opponents, and even distinguished opponents, like Hermann! If there be any point clear in the history of philosophy, it is the uncertainty of all judgments, respecting writers and thinkers, founded upon the mere allegations of opponents. Yet the Athenian Sophists, respecting whom we have no independent evidence (except the general fact that they had a number of approvers and admirers), are depicted confidently by the Platonic critics in the darkest colours, upon the evidence of their bitter opponent Plato — and in colours darker than even his evidence warrants. The often-repeated calumny, charged against almost all debaters — τὸ τὸν ἥττο λόγον κρείττω ποιεῖν — by Hermann against Schleiermacher, by Melêtus against Sokrates, by Plato against the Sophists — is believed only against these last.