Page:The Journal of Classical and Sacred Philology, Volume 1, 1854.djvu/190

180 Journal of Philology. drift, are to be found in the 12th section of his first volume, pp. 255, sq. He observes that although it is directly stated of Gorgias and Protagoras alone that they expressly contested the possibility of exact knowledge or science, and that indeed in the case of Prodicus and Hippias this is decidedly improbable ; still the despair of all objective truth is characteristic of the whole class : for though it did not amount to tJieoretical scepticism (positively enunciated) in all of them, yet the sophistical prac- tice presupposes the impossibility of attaining to any higher knowledge. This peculiar feature in the class is pointed out by Plato in passages 18 , where he speaks not merely of degenerate Sophists of the second generation, as in the Euthydemus, but where he refers generally to the sophistical method of philo- sophizing. The art which they practise is destructive of all true knowledge it is that of disputing on either side upon any question, avriXoyucq rex"? and their aim is to instruct their hearers in he same, dfKpKr^TrjrtKovs iroie7v. This is exemplified in the "profession of Protagoras" in rhetoric, top tjtto> yov Kpurrai TToutv, to which Aristotle, Rhet. II. 24, applies such uncompli- mentary expressions 19 , in the boastful pretension of Hippias (Xen. Mem. iv. 4, G), that he had always something new to say upon every subject. All this implies an utter practical disregard of objective truth and would be expressed theoretically by the denial of it : as indeed it was by Protagoras and Gorgias ; whose philosophical importance consisted mainly in this, that they raised to a conscious theory what with the rest was only a prac- tical habit. The necessary consequence of such a theory of knowledge was that they were driven to practice and to action. But the principle on which their practice and their theory are based is the same. As in the one case all absolute and general truth is denied, so in the other the obligation of existing laws and customs is attacked': and on the same ground, viz. that they are subjective and therefore change with the caprice of the sub- ject, or a,s the Sophists expressed it, justice, laws and so forth 18 Phsed. 90. B. Soph. 23a. Rep. v. science and regard for truth, reappears. 454. A. VII. 539. A. Phileh. 15. D. To Protagoras' art of rhetoric like his phi- which add Phileb. 17. A. Phsed. 101. E. losophy and ethics, and system of educa- Stallb. on Rep. v. 454. A. tion was all for show all sham <paw6- 19 Here again the pervading cha- fuvw he was a sham wise man himself, racter of the Sophistical practice and and imparted a sham wisdom to others, habit of mind, an entire absence of