Sophists are derived from their avowed antagonists forgetting themselves to notice who these antagonists after all are. Unfortunately for those whose cause they espouse they happen to be in every instance precisely the most virtuous, most healthy minded, and most discerning men of the time. The entire age in the person of those who constitute its history has pronounced its unerring and unalterable verdict upon the character and tendencies of the sophistic system. In spite of the unquestionably great abilities of the leading Sophists, their doctrine and plan of instruction was essentially unphilosophic,1 and carried in its bosom the seeds of its own speedy dissolution. The shameless avowal of systematic selfishness, and the denial of the possibility of absolute knowledge,' which formed the beginning and end of their creed, was of course diametrically at variance with the scientific universality of all professional study, and thus contradicted the very first requirements of the education they were called upon to impart.

9. The great and striking difference between the earlier and latter professors of the sophistic art must not however be forgotten. Protagoras by no means disclaimed the intention of imparting a morally elevating mental culture to his pupils,3 and in all that concerns personal conduct and demeanor, his character, like that of Gorgias and Prodicus, is invariably depicted by Plato in a spirit of marked admiration and respect. The elder Sophists seem never to have gone further than a dallying with scepticism, while Polus, Thrasymachus, Diagoras, and other younger representatives of the school gloried in figuring as the advocates of the coarsest profligacy and atheism."

10. Thoroughly possessed as were even the most eminent and accomplished of the Sophists with the delusive notion of cultivating the intellect as a mere mechanical force capable of being turned indifferently to the accomplishment of good or evil, instead of recognizing in the noblest element of humanity a faculty inseparably and essentially associated with its own highest objects, the effects of their

1. Compare the favorite and characteristic dogma of Protagoras δύο λόγους εἶναι περὶ πανTòs #рáyμatos ártikelμévovs åλλýλois Diogen. Laert. quoted by Brandis, Handbuch der Geschder Gr. Philos. I. p. 529.

2. Brandis, Handbuch der Gesch. der Gr. Philosophie I. p. 525 sqq. Roller die Gr. Sophisten, p. 21.

3. Plato Protag. p. 328 The liberality of spirit exhibited by Protagoras in all pecuniary transactions with his pupils is borne witness to by Plato in the same passage.

4. Brandis, Handbuch der Gr. Phil. I. pp. 543. 544.

6. Aristoph. Nub 98. οὗτοι διδάσκουσ', ἀργύριον ἦν τις διδῷ, λέγοντα νικᾶν καὶ δίκαια κα άδικα. According to Isocrates the art of the sophists consisted inrend ering τά μὲν μεγάλα μικρά, rá bì pixpà peɣáda. Cresoll. Theatr. Rhet. I. c. 11.

teaching could not fail to be most withering to the intellectual fertility, no less than to the honesty and moral vigor of the generation upon which they exercised an influence so extensive and so powerful. At the same time it is hardly necessary to say that we thoroughly agree with the general conclusion to which modern investigations on this subject seem gradually to have arrived. The magnitude and importance of the results produced by the Sophists upon the mental development of their own people, and that of after times were unquestionably such as it would not be easy to overestimate. The healthful and vitally quickening influences inherent in all knowledge and "active mindedness" seem in their case finally to have triumphed over the antisocial and disorganizing tendencies which entered so largely into the theory of their system. Their invaluable services to the cause of letters as the originators of philology, criticism, and systematic erudition of every kind, are too well known to require mention in detail. Of far more importance, doubtless, than any positive results attained to in those subjects was the stimulative effect produced by their eristic and disputatious mode of instruction in every department of enquiry. Above all, the sophists have the high merit of having called into existence a higher form of educational culture, which rapidly widening beyond its first narrow aims soon embraced within the compass of its influence many of those sciences which still rank amongst the most prominent subjects of professional study. We have already seen that oratory, both political and forensic, had received at their hands the regularity and consistency of an art practised in unison with ultimate principles of form and subject matter. The statesman, the advocate, and the instructor by whom they were trained to the duties of their respective callings constituted in the states of antiquity the first rudimentary form of that upper middle order in society whose admitted equality with the noblest, rests, wholly irrespective of wealth or external advantages, upon the intelligence and refined liberality of nature arising from the peculiar type of education inseparably associated with the exist ence of such a body. An even more important step towards the beginning of academic life was taken in the public adoption of knowledge in some one of its varieties, no longer as a mere dignified pastime, but as strenuous occupation and means of livelihood, as the one engrossing object of all the hopes, purposes, and energies of existence. The Sophists thus discovered for learning a solid ground of support, and established the activity and aims of higher and more spiritual being in the definite position and recognized importance of one of the leading and permanent avocations of social life. The appearance

of an entire class of individuals who not only derived support, but rose into fame, and princely affluence, simply by means of the knowledge they were enabled to convey, formed an epoch of the most momentous nature in the history of Greece, and of mankind. From the aptitude for a life of speculation peculiar to a race unparalleled for ingenuity and refinement of intellect, the calling of a teacher of learning soon became the favorite and most frequent pursuit of the entire people. The vast numbers who in the later ages of the empire devoted themselves to the profession of letters afforded a subject for many sarcasms to the satirical writers of the times. Lucian1 tells us that it would be an easier matter for one who was suddenly precipitated into a ship to avoid coming in contact with timber than to escape meeting a philosopher in a Greek city. Plutarch, in his treatise de fraterno amore, quotes a saying of Aristarchus to the effect that, whereas in former times there had been only seven sages (oopioraí) in all Greece at the time at which he wrote it would be difficult to find as many individuals who were anything else. An unmistakeable evidence of the prominence and extent to which philosophers and Sophists figured in the eyes of the public is to be seen in the fact of their furnishing one of the most familiar characters and standing subjects to the poets of middle and later comedy.

Attic Oratory-Attic Philosophy.

11. The first fruits of the labors of the Sophists, in so far as the progress of education is concerned, are to be seen in the rise of distinct schools of Attic oratory. Eloquence had been embraced and studied as a separate profession even when the sophistical movement was still at its height. Antiphon and Lysias, both of whom had gone forth from the instruction of the Sophists, while regularly practising as advocates, labored to discover the ratio of literary excellence and officiated as teachers of eloquence in accordance with a systematic theory of the art. Antiphon was regarded as the inventor of the Attic type of forensic and political oratory, and in Lysias, according to an ancient critic' that which seems most unstudied is in reality most artistic. We thus perceive that the higher education of the Greeks, although originating very much as among the Romans, and in the middle ages also, in the personal intercourse and oral instruction of eminent individuals, is distinguished from the first by the presence of that scientific and absolute character which, in conjunc

1. Bis accusatus, p. 798. Hemsterhus.

2. Quoted by Gregor. Nazianz. Ep. 121. καὶ τὸ ἄτεχνον αὐτοῦ λίαν ἐντεχνόν ἐστιν.

junction with strictly defined specialty of application, constitutes the essential peculiarity of University instruction.

12. The ancient conception of academic study, in which the former of these twin factors naturally predominated, received its final consummation from the vast and mighty reaction called forth by the Sophists against the most repulsive and most dangerous tendencies of their system. The elements of a sound and noble temper were as yet too deeply rooted in the Hellenic, and, above all, in the Athenian temper, not to rest in rebellion against a scheme of doctrine which insulted the stern search after knowledge with the paltry contrivances of a juggling imposture, and prostituted the most god like faculties of our nature to objects the vilest and most sinister. The vision of the Absolute, darkened for a time in the minds of men, revealed itself in Plato' with a splendor and certainty hitherto undreamt of, affording the grandest refutation in point of fact to those traffickers in lying and deceit whose refinements in dishonesty all started from the notion that Truth could not be known, or, if known, could not possibly be communicated.

SCHOOLS OF PLATO, ISOCRATES, AND ARISTOTLE.

13. The schools of Plato and Isocrates, at the period at which we have now arrived, completely discharged the functions of a University in Athens. The most distinguished individuals of the times with scarcely an exception received their mental training in one or other of these seminaries. Isocrates is described, and assuredly with good reason by later writers, as occupying the chair of Sophistry in Athens (θρόνον τῶν ̓Αθηναίων), and rising preëminent from amidst a crowd of similar teachers. His school, like that of Plato, embraced students from the most distant Greek colonies; and many youths of noble, and even royal blood are said to have belonged to their number. As a professor of political science and rhetoric, the instruction of Isocrates was attended not only by those who, like Timotheus, Lycurgus, Demosthenes, Hyperides, Aeschines, &c., desired to prepare themselves for a career of practical efficiency and distinction in the state, but by the historians Theopompus and Ephorus, and the 1. Clemens Alexandr. Str. I. p. 339. Potter.

2. Compare the words of Lucian Nigrin. p. 57. Hemsterhus. avrǹ ǹ Hiλovopía, kai IIλáτων, καὶ 'Αληθεία.

3. Himerius orat. 32. §. 1 et 2. Cresoll Theatr. Rhetr. I. 2.

5. e. g. Nicocles the son of Euagoras king of Cyprus.

4. Cic. Brut. § 8.

6. Dionys. Hal. #epì 'Iσоxp. §§. 2 et 5. Plut. X. orat. vit. p. 836. Phot. Biblioth. cod. 260. Cic. de orat. II. 22. Ecce tibi exortus est Isocrates, magister istorum omnium, cujus e ludo, tanquam ex equo Trojano, meri principes extiterunt. See also Ruhnken Hist. crit. orat. whero the same circumstance is recorded of other worthies of this period.

tragedians Asclepiades and Theodectes. If the example of Clearchus, the subsequent tyrant of Heraclea, may be regarded as establishing the rule, the term of study occupied four years, and the fee for the entire course amounted to a thousand drachmae. Many of the above mentioned personages are mentioned as having attended the teaching of Plato likewise. Demosthenes more especially is related upon good authority to have been an earnest and attentive listener to the discourses of the loftiest of thinkers.' In the case of the stu

dents of oratory such a course was no doubt adopted with the view of giving greater amplitude and depth of thought to the political instruction of Isocrates, and also from a desire to perfect themselves in acumen of reasoning and argumentative power.

14. The beginnings of even the external organization of the University date from the same period in the history of Athenian culture. In their intimacy of relation to each other, and the distinct, yet kindred manner in which they respectively labored to accomplish the great ends of educational discipline the schools of Isocrates and Plato distinctly represent an earlier form of the Faculties of modern academic instruction. So marked and characteristically important was the position they maintained that, with the vitality inherent in every arrangement resting npon something beyond mere individual efficiency, they not only survived their original founders, but, by means of a series of a regularly appointed successors (diádoxo), gradually ripened into permanently established, and, so to say, national institutions."

15. The appearance of a philosophy unequalled, then, or since, for sublimity of contemplation, moral vitality, and rigorous acuteness of dialectic produced the usual lifegiving effects of such a phenomenon upon knowledge and education in all its forms. The learned and philological subjects discussed by Hippias and Prodicus grew under the hands of Aristotle into a precision and substantiality which, when compared with the capricious and popular character they had hitherto maintained, presented a contrast even more decided than that existing between the ontology of Plato, and the shifting notionalism of the Sophists. In Aristotle, more especially, the science and educational culture of the ancient world reached its highest consummation. Knowledge and instruction purified and exalted above all anxiety respecting appearances commenced in thoughtful observation, and yearned upwards through steadfast toil and energy of intellectual effort towards the ideal transformation (ro ánodavarišeiv) of hu

1. Photius Bibl. p, 793. Hosch.

2. Cic. Brutus C. 31. Dial. de orat. § 32. Plut. X. orat. vit.

8. Dion. Halicarn, de struct. orat. § 79.

4. Eth. Nicom. X. 7.