The Sophists. 159 acquaintance with all departments of knowledge, they can deliver with equal readiness upon any one; but the moment they are brought into contact with a sound and acute thinker, and their real knowledge put to the test, all this fine show at once disap- pears, and their ignorance and impudence stand confessed " in all their charms/' This seems to be the notion entertained of them by Plato : and it was this emptiness and pretence which tended to check the advance of knowledge, and to substitute words for science, and rhetorical common-places for true philo- sophy, together with the influence which they had acquired by their talents and arts, that rendered Plato so hostile to their character and induced him to give them so prominent a place in his writings. All their proceedings as represented by Plato, are stamped with the one pervading character of akafyveta, " quackery ;" a word which is expressly applied to them by Aristophanes, Xeno- phon, and Isocrates, and is equivalent to the terms by which Aristotle conveys the distinction between their professions and true philosophy ; I do not mean to say that this was the only thing which Plato and the higher order of thinkers at Athens found fault with in these men ; I believe we have proof to the contrary; but that this in Plato's view was the basis of their intellectual character, and might naturally lead their followers, if not themselves, into the most reckless and daring opinions and assertions, subversive alike of sound philosophy and morals, some of which are mentioned in the citation from the Laws, and pas- sages hereafter to be quoted 9 . 9 Mr Grote quotes Rep. VI. 492. A. blame in theatres, law-courts, assemblies, as showing that Plato distinctly denies and so forth. I take this interpretation to that corruption of the Athenian youth be at least equally in accordance with the was attributable to the Sophists. If words themselves, and far more so with this were the true interpretation of the Plato's views of the pernicious effect of passage, all further argument about the teaching of the Sophists, so often Plato's opinion of the sophistical teach- expressed elsewhere. It is plain from ing would be superseded. But to me the repetition of (rotpicrrds in the second the words convey no other meaning than clause, dXV oin avroi/s, k.t.X., that it is this that people talk of a few indivi- implied in the first that the Sophists do dual sophists as corrupters of the Athe- corrupt youth : for where would be the nian youth, who do no harm worth speak- sense of saying, that those who bring ing of, compared with that which they this charge are themselves the greatest do themselves by the injudicious manner "Sophists," (meaning that they them- in which they dispense their praise and selves are the worst corrupters of youth),
