Note 92 — Chapter XXVIII · THEÆTETUS.

Plato, Theætêt. pp. 179-183. The description which we read here (put into the mouth of the geometer Theodôrus) of the persons in Ephesus and other parts of Ionia, who speculated in the vein of Herakleitus — is full of vivid fancy and smartness, but is for that reason the less to be trusted as accurate.

The characteristic features ascribed to these Herakleiteans are quite unlike to the features of Protagoras, so far as we know them; though Protagoras, nevertheless, throughout this dialogue, is spoken of as if he were an Herakleitean. These men are here depicted as half mad — incapable of continuous attention — hating all systematic speech and debate — answering, when addressed, only in brief, symbolical, enigmatic phrases, of which they had a quiver-full, but which they never condescended to explain (ὥσπερ ἐκ φαρέτρας ῥηματίσκια αἰνιγματώδη ἀνασπῶντες ἀποτοξεύουσιν, see Lassalle, vol. i. pp. 32-39 — springing up by spontaneous inspiration, despising instruction, p. 180 A), and each looking down upon the others as ignorant. If we compare the picture thus given by Plato of the Herakleiteans, with the picture which he gives of Protagoras in the dialogue so called, we shall see that the two are as unlike as possible.

Lassalle, in his elaborate work on the philosophy of Herakleitus, attempts to establish the philosophical affinity between Herakleitus and Protagoras: but in my judgment unsuccessfully. According to Lassalle’s own representation of the doctrine of Herakleitus, it is altogether opposed to the most eminent Protagorean doctrine, Ἄνθρωπος ἑαυτῷ μέτρον — and equally opposed to that which Plato seems to imply as Protagorean — Αἴσθησις = Ἐπιστήμη. The elucidation given by Lassalle of Herakleitus, through the analogy of Hegel, is certainly curious and instructive. The Absolute Process of Herakleitus is at variance with Protagoras, not less than the Absolute Object or Substratum of the Eleates, or the Absolute Ideas of Plato. Lassalle admits that Herakleitus is the entire antithesis to Protagoras, yet still contends that he is the prior stage of transition towards Protagoras (vol. i. p. 64).