The Sophists. 163 philosophizing, as conveyed in the treatise nepi 2oc/>. eXe'yx* I will now cite a passage from the Nicom. Ethics, ix. 1, by which their aXaCoveia is further illustrated. After mentioning Protagoras' fair dealing in the matter of taking fees from his pupils (comp. Plat. Protag. 328. b), he continues, " but those that take the money beforehand, if they then fail to perform every thing they have undertaken by reason of the exaggeration of their professions, are justly subject to censure : for they do not fulfil their contract. But perhaps the Sophists are obliged to act in this way, because no one would pay them for what they do know f which certainly conveys no favourable impression of their intellectual and moral qualifications as teachers of youth. Add to these passages Rhet. I. 1. 4. (quoted by Mr Grote, p. 484, not. 1), where the author " explains the Sophist to be a person who has the same powers as the dialectician, but abuses them for a bad purpose ;" and we have enough to show what was Aristotle's judgment of the class generally. Leaving, as before, notices of particular Sophists till we come to treat of them separately, we will proceed to examine the rest of our witnesses. The testimony of Aristophanes Mr Grote refuses altogether to admit : and says that if he is a witness against any one it is against Socrates, who is singled out for attack in the Clouds. This is disposing of that author rather too summarily. It is true that Aristophanes attributes to Socrates a mass of opinions and practices, some of which belonged to other philosophers, and some perhaps were purely fictitious ; and that he was alto- gether mistaken in his selection of Socrates as the representative of the Sophists ; but it does not follow from this that the thing he describes had no real existence : on the contrary, the mere fact of his making the attack upon the sophistical spirit em- bodied in the odd and grotesque figure of Socrates, and the pale face of his friend Chaerephon, is a proof of the strong popular antipathy already growing against a new set of teachers called Sophists, which must no doubt have had some real foundation : Interdum vulgus recte videt: and the singularly bitter spirit which pervades the whole play, and interferes considerably with the comic effect, shows that this time at least Aristophanes was in real earnest. Aristophanes' evidence unsupported would be worth little : it is the business of a comic poet and satirist to exaggerate and distort ; but it gains weight when confirmed, as 112
