Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/415

VIEWS OF PLATO. 393 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 h among the marvels of the Grecian world. His dissent from all the societies which he saw around him, not merely democrat- ical, but oligarchical ar.d despotic also, was of the deepest and most radical charactei. 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 char- Thc name of Protagoras occurs only once in the dialogue, in reference to the doctrine, started by Euthydcmus, that false propositions or contra- dictory propositions were impossible, because no one could either think about or talk about that which was not, or the non-existent (p. 284, A ; 286, C). This doctrine is said by Sokrates to have been much talked of " by Protagoras, and by men yet earlier than he." It is idle to infer from such a passage, any connection or analogy between these men and Protagoras, as Stallbaum labors to do throughout his Prolegomena ; affirming (in his note on p. 286, C,) most incorrectly, that Protagoras maintained this doctrine about TO firi ov, or the non-existent, because he had too great faith in the evidence of the senses ; whereas we know from Plato that it had its rise with Parmenides, who rejected the evidence of the senses entirely (see Plato, Sophist. 24, p. 237, A, with Ileindorf and Stallbaum's notes). Diog- enes LaeYtius (ix. 8, 53) falsely asserts that Protagoras was the first to broach the doctrine, and even cites as his witness Plato in the Euthydemus, where the exact contrary is stated. "Whoever broached it first, it was a doc- trine following plausibly from the then received Realism, and Plato wa? long perplexed before he could solve the difficulty to his own satisfaction (Theaetet. p. 187, D). I do not doubt that tin- re were in Athens persons who abused the dialec- tical exercise for frivolous puzzles, and it was well for Plato to compose a dialogue exhibiting the contrast between these men and Sokrates. But to treat Euthydcmus and Dionysodorus as samples of " The Sophists," ii altogether unwarranted.