358 HISTORY OF GREECE. to sucb practical precepts as were accounted virtuous by th most estimable society in Athens. It ought never to be forgotten, that those who taught for active life were bound, by the very conditions of their profession, to adapt themselves to the place and the society as it stood. With the theorist Plato, not only there was no such obligation, but the grandeur and instructive- ness of his speculations were realized only by his departing from it, and placing himself on a loftier pinnacle of vision ; and he himself 1 not only admits, but even exaggerates, the unfitness and repugnance of men, taught in his school, for practical life and duties. To understand the essential difference between the practical and the theoretical point of view, we need only look to Isokrates, the pupil of Gorgias, and himself a sophist. Though not a man of commanding abilities, Isokrates was one of the most estimable men of Grecian antiquity. He taught for money ; and taught young men to " think, speak, and act," all with a view to an hon- orable life of active citizenship ; not concealing his marked dis- paragement 2 of speculative study and debate, such as the dialogues 1 See a striking passage in Plato, Thesetet. c. 24, pp. 173, 174. 2 Isokrates, Orat. v (ad. Philip.), sect. 14 ; Orat. x (Enc. Hel.), sect. 2 ; Orat. xiii (adv. Sophist.), sect. 9 ( compare Heindorfs note ad Platon. Euthy- dem. sect. 79) ; Orat. xii (Panath.), sect. 126 ; Orat. xv (Perm.), sect. 90. Isokrates, in the beginning of his Orat. x, Encom. Helense, censures all the speculative teachers ; first, Antisthenes and Plato (without naming them, but identifying them sufficiently by their doctrines ; next, Protagoras, Gor gias, Melissus, Zeno, etc., by name, as having wasted their time and teach- ing on fruitless paradox and controversy. lie insists upon the necessity of teaching with a view to political life and to the course of actual public events, abandoning these useless studies (sect. 6). It is remarkable that what Isokrates recommends is just what Protagoras and Gorgias are represented as actually doing each doubtless in his own way in the dialogues of Plato, who censures them for being too practical while Isokrates, commenting on them from various publications which they left, treats them only as teachers of useless speculations. In the Oration De Permutatione, composed when he was eighty-two years of age (sect. 10, the orations above cited are earlier compositions, especially Orat. xiii, against the sophists, see sect. 206), Isokrates stands upon the de fensive, and vindicates his profession against manifold aspersions. It is a most interesting oration, as a defence of the educators of Athens generally, and would serve perfectly well as a vindication of the teaching of Protagoras Gorgias, Hippias, etc., against the reproaches of Plato.
