to scepticism in religion and in morals; they preached the supremacy of intellect, the absolute right of private judgment, the new epoch of enlightenment, when logical proofs were to displace moral convictions; and for the moment it seemed as if all society must be set loose from its old and hallowed beliefs, and sent adrift upon a sea of negative arguments and sceptical surmises.
9. Presently, however, the Athenians righted themselves. The encyclopædic pretences of the sophists gave way before the attacks of specialists in science, specialists in philosophy, and specialists in rhetoric. The misfortunes of the State produced a strong reaction towards orthodoxy, and to this reaction Socrates fell a victim. But this came in the next generation. In the Periclean age we must conceive the deeper minds as unsettled by the speculations of philosophy, while the more superficial were attracted by the flippant scepticism of the lower sophists. There was, of course, a large body of vulgar orthodoxy that worshipped the national gods, that consulted oracles and prophets, that believed in dreams and omens. Even Pericles seems to have traded upon this orthodoxy. But the pride of intellect, the love of reasoning everything out, the desire of superiority in debate, were so prominent a feature in society as to spoil conversation, and generally to turn a dinner-party into a debating club. The only author of this period who knows how to compose an easy and natural dialogue is the Ionic Herodotus. Even the early Attic prose of Gorgias was full of artificial graces—he was a sort of Watteau in oratory.
10. But men soon began to seek for clearness and strength in this as in the other arts which had made earlier and more rapid progress. It was indeed in these other arts—architecture, sculpture, probably painting and music also—that the most sceptical might find large and satisfactory results. They were not cultivated by amateurs but by professional artists, whose whole life was devoted to the study of their art. Ictinus and Mnesicles, the builders of the giant
