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NOTE.
Since the above study was written my attention has been called to an article on Plato and Protagoras in the Philosophical Review, xvi., 469, (September, 1907) by Prof. J. Watson. Its appearance is a welcome sign of the times in so far as it indicates a perception that the old controversy between Protagoras and Plato is by no means dead and recognizes that it turns on essentially the same point as the modern issue between Humanism and Absolutism. But Prof. Watson could have very materially enhanced the timeliness and relevance of his discussion by taking more adequate cognizance of the Neo-Protagorean position. Even if my Studies in Humanism (pp. 33-38, 145-46, and 298-347) appeared too recently to be used by him, he might at least have referred to a quite explicit article which appeared in the Quarterly Review so long ago as January, 1906. Instead of this he confines his polemic to a passing remark in the Preface of my Humanism, the full justification of which is only forthcoming in the present study. It is, however, satisfactory to find that he also thinks that Plato meant to give the veritable views of Protagoras. He holds also that Plato, when writing the Theætetus, had access to the treatise of Protagoras, a position which I have given reasons for thinking not only intrinsically improbable, in view of the apologetic tone of the Platonic reproductions, but also untenable, as ignoring the external authority of Diogenes Laertius, ix., 52. So despite of what I said in Studies in Humanism, p. 37, it now seems to me far more likely that Plato was relying wholly on oral tradition about a work that was no longer extant. The Speech Prof. Watson ascribes to a ‘developed’ Protagoreanism fabricated by Plato
