way, makes it lead to the most outrageous absurdity and immorality. This is as if Berkeley's doctrine had been transmitted to us by Beattie. Berkeley, it is well known, denied the existence of the external world, resolving it into a simple world of ideas. Beattie taunted him with not having followed out his principles, and with not having walked over a precipice. This was a gross misrepresentation; an ignoratio elenchi; Beattie misunderstood the argument, and drew conclusions from his misunderstanding. Now suppose him to have written a dialogue on the plan of those of Plato: suppose him making Berkeley expound his argument in the way he (Beattie) interpreted it, with a flavor of exaggeration for the sake of effect, and of absurdity for the sake of easy refutation: how would he have made Berkeley speak? Somewhat thus: "Yes, I maintain that there is no such external existence as that which men vulgarly believe in. There is no world of matter, but only a world of ideas. If I were to walk over a precipice, I should receive no injury; it is only an ideal precipice."

This is the interpretation of a Beattie; how true it is most men know it is, however, quite as true as Plato's interpretation of the Sophists. From Berkeley's works we can convict Beattie. Plato we can convict from experience of human nature: experience tells us that no man, far less any set of men, could seriously, publicly, and constantly broach doctrines thought to be subversive of all morality, without incurring the heaviest penalties. To broach immoral doctrines with the faintest prospect of success, a man must do so in the name of rigid Morality. To teach immorality, and openly to avow that it is immoral, was, according to Plato, the office of the Sophists;* a statement which carries with it its own contradiction.

This passage in the Protagoras is often referred to as a proof of the shamelessness of the Sophists, and sometimes of the ill-favor with which they were regarded. It is to us only a proof of Plato's tendency to caricature.

§ II. PROTAGORAS.

Nothing can be more erroneous than to isolate the Sophists from previous teachers, as if they were no direct product of the speculative efforts which preceded them. They illustrate the crisis at which philosophy had arrived. They took the negative, as Socrates took the positive issue out of the dilemma.

Protagoras, the first who is said to have avowed himself a Sophist, was born at Abdera, where Democritus first noticed him as a porter, who showed great address in inventing the knot.* The consequence was that Democritus gave him instructions in Philosophy. The story is apocryphal, but indicates a connection to have existed between the speculations of the two thinkers. Let us suppose Protagoras to have accepted the doctrine of Democritus; with him to have rejected the unity of the Eleatics and to have maintained the existence of the Many. With this he also learned that thought is sensation, and that all knowledge is therefore phenomenal. There were two theories in the Democritean system which he could not accept, viz. the Atomic and Reflective. These two imply each other. Reflection is necessary for the idea of Atoms; and it is from the idea of Atoms not perceived by the sense, that the existence of Reflection is proved. Protagoras rejected the Atoms, and could therefore reject Reflection. He said that Thought was Sensation, and all knowledge consequently individual.

Did not the place of his birth no less than the traditional story lead one to suppose some connection with Democritus, we might feel authorized to adopt certain expressions of Plato, and consider Protagoras to have derived his doctrine from Heraclitus. He certainly resembles the last-named in the main results to which his speculations led him. Be that as it may, the fact is unques

* What the precise signification of róλn is we are unable to say. A porter's knot, such as is now used, is the common interpretation. Perhaps Protagoras had contrived a sort of wooden machine such as the glazier's use, and which is used by the porters in Greece and Italy to this day.

tionable, that he maintained the doctrine of Thought being identical with and limited by Sensation. Now, this doctrine implies that every thing is true relatively-every sensation is a true sensation; and, as there is nothing but sensation, knowledge is ir evitably fleeting and imperfect. In a melancholy mind, as in that of Heraclitus, such a doctrine would deepen sadness, till it produced despair. In minds of greater elasticity, in men of greater confidence, such a doctrine would lead to an energetic skepticism. In Protagoras it became the formula: "Man is the measure of all things."

Sextus Empiricus gives the psychological doctrine of Protagoras very explicitly; and his account may be received without suspicion. We translate a portion of it:

"Matter," says Protagoras, "is in a perpetual flux ;* whilst it undergoes augmentations and losses, the senses also are modified, according to the age and disposition of the body." He said, also, that the reasons of all phenomena (appearances) resided in matter as substrata (τοὺς λόγους πάντων τῶν φαινομένων ὑποκεῖσθαι ἐν τῇ λ); so that matter, in itself, might be whatever it appeared to each. But men have different perceptions at different times, according to the changes in the thing perceived. Whoever is in a healthy state perceives things such as they appear to all others in a healthy state, and vice versa. A similar course holds with respect to different ages, as well as in sleeping and waking. Man is therefore the criterion of that which exists; all that is perceived by him exists, that which is perceived by no man does not exist"

Now, conceive men conducted by what they thought irresistible arguments to such a doctrine as the above, and then see how naturally all the skepticism of the Sophists flows from it. The difference between the Sophists and the Skeptics was this: they

* Tùv õλnu þevorv tival, an expression which, if not borrowed by Sextus from Plato, would confirm the conjecture above respecting Heraclitus, as the source of Protagoras's system.

+ Hypot. Pyrrhon. p. 44.

were both convinced of the insufficiency of all knowledge, but the Skeptics contented themselves with the conviction, while the Sophists, satisfied with the vanity of all endeavor to penetrate the mysteries of the universe, began to consider their relations to other men: they devoted themselves to politics and rhetoric. If there was no possibility of Truth, there only remained the possibility of Persuasion. If one opinion was as true as another-that is, if neither were true,-it was nevertheless desirable, for the sake of Society, that certain opinions should prevail; and, if Logic was powerless, Rhetoric was efficient. Hence Protagoras is made to say, by Plato, that the wise man is the physician of the soul: he cannot indeed induce truer thoughts into the mind, since all thoughts are equally true; but he can induce healthier and more profitable thoughts. He can in the same way heal Society, since by the power of oratory he can introduce good useful sentiments in the place of those base and hurtful.t

This doctrine may be false; but is it not a natural consequence of the philosophy of the epoch? It may be immoral; but is it necessarily the bold and shameless immorality attributed to the Sophists? To us it appears to be neither more nor less than the result of a sense of the radical insufficiency of knowledge. Protagoras had spent his youth in the study of philosophy; he had found that study vain and idle; he had utterly rejected it, and had turned his attention elsewhere. A man of practical tendencies, he wanted a practical result. Failing in this, he sought another path, firmly impressed with the necessity of having something more definite wherewith to enter the world of action. Plato could see no nobler end in life than that of contemplating Being, than that of familiarizing the mind with the eternal Good, the Just, and the Beautiful,-of which all goodness, justice, and beautiful things were the images. With such a view of life it was natural that he should despise the skepticism of the

* See Plato's definition of the sophistical art, Sophista, p. 146.
Theaetetus, p. 228.

Sophists. This skepticism is clearly set forth in the following passage from the speech of Callicles, in Plato's Gorgias :

"Philosophy is a graceful thing when it is moderately cultivated in youth; but, if any one occupies himself with it beyond the proper age, it ruins him; for, however great may be his natural capacity, if he philosophizes too long he must of necessity be inexperienced in all those things which one who would be great and eminent must be experienced in. He must be unacquainted with the laws of his country, and with the mode of influencing other men in the intercourse of life, whether private or public, and with the pleasures and passions of men; in short, with human characters and manners. And when such men are called upon to act, whether on a private or public occasion, they expose themselves to ridicule, just as politicians do when they come to your conversation, and attempt to cope with you in argument; for every man, as Euripides says, occupies himself with that in which he finds himself superior; that in which he is inferior he avoids, and speaks ill of it, but praises what he excels in, thinking that in doing so he is praising himself. The best thing, in my opinion, is to partake of both. It is good to partake of philosophy by way of education, and it is not ungraceful in a young man to philosophize. But, if he continues to do so when he grows older, he becomes ridiculous, and I feel towards him as I should towards a grown person who lisped and played at childish plays. When I see an old man still continuing to philosophize, I think he deserves to be flogged. However great his natural talents, he is under the necessity of avoiding the assembly and public places, where, as the poet says, men become eminent, and to hide himself, and to pass his life whispering to two or three striplings in a corner, but never speaking out any thing great, and bold, and liberal.”

That Protagoras, no less than Prodicus,* was a teacher of ex

* Prodicus is especially excepted by Aristophanes in his sweeping condemnation of the Sophists; and, indeed, the author of the well-known parable, The Choice of Hercules, must command the respect even of antagonists.