Let us examine again the names of these professional teachers, beginning with Prodikus, one of the most renowned. Who is there that has not read the well-known fable called “The Choice of Hercules,” which is to be found in every book professing to collect impressive illustrations of elementary morality? Who does not know that its express purpose is, to kindle the imaginations of youth in favor of a life of labor for noble objects, and against a life of indulgence? It was the favorite theme on which Prodikus lectured, and on which he obtained the largest audience.[594] If it be of striking simplicity and effect even to a modern reader, how much more powerfully must it have worked upon the audience for whose belief it was specially adapted, when set off by the oral expansions of its author! Xenophon wondered that the Athenian dikasts dealt with Sokratês as a corruptor of youth,—Isokratês wondered that a portion of the public made the like mistake about him,—and I confess my wonder to be not less, that not only Aristophanês,[595] but even the modern writers on Grecian philosophy, should rank Prodikus in the same unenviable catalogue. This is the only composition[596] remaining from him; indeed, the only composition remaining from any one of the sophists, excepting the thesis of Gorgias, above noticed. It served, not merely as a vindication of Prodikus against such reproach, but also as a warning against implicit confidence in the sarcastic remarks of Plato,—which include Prodikus as well as the other sophists,—and in the doctrines which he puts into the mouth of the sophists generally, in order that Sokratês may confute them. The commonest candor would teach us, that if a polemical writer of dialogue chooses to put indefensible doctrine into the mouth of the opponent, we ought to be cautious of condemning the latter upon such very dubious proof.
Welcker and other modern authors treat Prodikus as “the most innocent” of the sophists, and except him from the sentence which they pass upon the class generally. Let us see, therefore, what Plato himself says about the rest of them, and first about Protagoras. If it were not the established practice with readers of Plato to condemn Protagoras beforehand, and to put upon every passage relating to him not only a sense as bad as it will bear, but much worse than it will fairly bear, they would probably carry away very different inferences from the Platonic dialogue called by that sophist’s name, and in which he is made to bear a chief part. That dialogue is itself enough to prove that Plato did not conceive Protagoras either as a corrupt, or unworthy, or incompetent teacher. The course of the dialogue exhibits him as not master of the theory of ethics, and unable to solve various difficulties with which that theory is expected to grapple; moreover, as no match for Sokratês in dialectics, which Plato considered as the only efficient method of philosophical investigation. In so far, therefore, as imperfect acquaintance with the science or theory upon which rules of art, or the precepts bearing on practice, repose, disqualifies a teacher from giving instruction in such art or practice, to that extent Protagoras is exposed as wanting. And if an expert dialectician, like Plato, had passed Isokratês or Quintilian, or the large majority of teachers past or present, through a similar cross-examination as to the theory of their teaching, an ignorance not less manifest than that of Protagoras would be brought out. The antithesis which Plato sets forth, in so many of his dialogues, between precept or practice, accompanied by full knowledge of the scientific principles from which it must be deduced, if its rectitude be disputed,—and unscientific practice, without any such power of deduction or defence, is one of the most valuable portions of his speculations: he exhausts his genius to render it conspicuous in a thousand indirect ways, and to shame his readers, if possible, into the loftier and more rational walk of thought. But it is one thing to say of a man, that he does not know the theory of what he teaches, or of the way in which he teaches; it is another thing to say, that he actually teaches that which scientific theory would not prescribe as the best; it is a third thing, graver than both, to say that his teaching is not only below the exigences of science, but even corrupt and demoralizing. Now of these three points, it is the first only which Plato in his dialogue makes out against Protagoras: even the second, he neither affirms nor insinuates; and as to the third, not only he never glances at it, even indirectly, but the whole tendency of the discourse suggests a directly contrary conclusion. As if sensible that when an eminent opponent was to be depicted as puzzled and irritated by superior dialectics, it was but common fairness to set forth his distinctive merits also, Plato gives a fable, and expository harangue, from the mouth of Protagoras,[597] upon the question whether virtue is teachable. This harangue is, in my judgment, very striking and instructive; and so it would have been probably accounted, if commentators had not read it with a preëstablished persuasion that whatever came from the lips of a sophist must be either ridiculous or immoral.[598] It is the only part of Plato’s works wherein any account is rendered of the growth of that floating, uncertified, self-propagating body of opinion, upon which the cross-examining analysis of Sokratês is brought to bear, as will be seen in the following chapter.
Protagoras professes to teach his pupils “good counsel” in their domestic and family relations, as well as how to speak and act in the most effective manner for the weal of the city. Since this comes from Protagoras, the commentators of Plato pronounce it to be miserable morality; but it coincides, almost to the letter, with that which Isokratês describes himself as teaching, a generation afterwards, and substantially even with that which Xenophon represents Sokratês as teaching; nor is it easy to set forth, in a few words, a larger scheme of practical duty.[599] And if the measure of practical duty, which Protagoras devoted himself to teach, was thus serious and extensive, even the fraction of theory assigned to him in his harangue, includes some points better than that of Plato himself. For Plato seems to have conceived the ethical end, to each individual, as comprising nothing more than his own permanent happiness and moral health; and in this very dialogue, he introduces Sokratês as maintaining virtue to consist only in a right calculation of a man’s own personal happiness and misery. But here we find Protagoras speaking in a way which implies a larger, and, in my opinion, a juster, appreciation of the ethical end, as including not only reference to a man’s own happiness, but also obligations towards the happiness of others. Without at all agreeing in the harsh terms of censure which various critics pronounce upon that theory which Sokratês is made to set forth in the Platonic Protagoras, I consider his conception of the ethical end essentially narrow and imperfect, not capable of being made to serve as basis for deduction of the best ethical precepts. Yet such is the prejudice with which the history of the sophists has been written, that the commentators on Plato accuse the sophists of having originated what they ignorantly term, “the base theory of utility,” here propounded by Sokratês himself; complimenting the latter on having set forth those larger views which in this dialogue belong only to Protagoras.[600]
So far as concerns Protagoras, therefore, the evidence of Plato himself may be produced to show that he was not a corrupt teacher, but a worthy companion of Prodikus; worthy also of that which we know him to have enjoyed, the society and conversation of Periklês. Let us now examine what Plato says about a third sophist, Hippias of Elis; who figures both in the dialogue called “Protagoras,” and in two distinct dialogues known by the titles of “Hippias Major and Minor.” Hippias is represented as distinguished for the wide range of his accomplishments, of which in these dialogues he ostentatiously boasts. He could teach astronomy, geometry, and arithmetic, which subjects Protagoras censured him for enforcing too much upon his pupils; so little did these sophists agree in any one scheme of doctrine or education. Besides this, he was a poet, a musician, an expositor of the poets, and a lecturer with a large stock of composed matter,—on subjects moral, political, and even legendary,—treasured up in a very retentive memory. He was a citizen much employed as envoy by his fellow-citizens: to crown all, his manual dexterity was such that he professed to have made with his own hands all the attire and ornaments which he wore on his person. If, as is sufficiently probable, he was a vain and ostentatious man,—defects not excluding an useful and honorable career,—we must at the same time give him credit for a variety of acquisitions such as to explain a certain measure of vanity.[601] The style in which Plato handles Hippias is very different from that in which he treats Protagoras. It is full of sneer and contemptuous banter, insomuch that even Stallbaum,[602] after having repeated a great many times that this was a vile sophist, who deserved no better treatment, is forced to admit that the petulance is carried rather too far, and to suggest that the dialogue must have been a juvenile work of Plato. Be this as it may, amidst so much unfriendly handling, not only we find no imputation against Hippias, of having preached a low or corrupt morality, but Plato inserts that which furnishes good, though indirect, proof of the contrary. For Hippias is made to say that he had already delivered, and was about to deliver again, a lecture composed by himself with great care, wherein he enlarged upon the aims and pursuits which a young man ought to follow. The scheme of his discourse was, that after the capture of Troy, the youthful Neoptolemus was introduced as asking the advice of Nestor about his own future conduct; in reply to which, Nestor sets forth to him what was the plan of life incumbent on a young man of honorable aspirations, and unfolds to him the full details of regulated and virtuous conduct by which it ought to be filled up.[603] The selection of two such names, among the most venerated in all Grecian legend, as monitor and pupil, is a stamp clearly attesting the vein of sentiment which animated the composition. Morality preached by Nestor for the edification of Neoptolemus, might possibly be too high for Athenian practice; but most certainly it would not err on the side of corruption, selfishness, or over-indulgence. We may fairly presume that this discourse composed by Hippias would not be unworthy, in spirit and purpose, to be placed by the side of “The Choice of Hercules,” nor its author by that of Prodikus as a moral teacher.
The dialogue entitled “Gorgias,” in Plato, is carried on by Sokratês with three different persons one after the other,—Gorgias, Pôlus, and Kalliklês. Gorgias of Leontini in Sicily, as a rhetorical teacher, acquired greater celebrity than any man of his time, during the Peloponnesian war: his abundant powers of illustration, his florid ornaments, his artificial structure of sentences distributed into exact antithetical fractions, all spread a new fashion in the art of speaking, which for the time was very popular, but afterwards became discredited. If the line could be clearly drawn between rhetors and sophists, Gorgias ought rather to be ranked with the former.[604] In the conversation with Gorgias, Sokratês exposes the fallacy and imposture of rhetoric and rhetorical teaching, as cheating an ignorant audience into persuasion without knowledge, and as framed to satisfy the passing caprice, without any regard to the permanent welfare and improvement of the people. Whatever real inculpation may be conveyed in these arguments against a rhetorical teacher, Gorgias must bear in common with Isokratês and Quintilian, and under the shield of Aristotle. But save and except rhetorical teaching, no dissemination of corrupt morality is ascribed to him by Plato; who, indeed, treats him with a degree of respect which surprises the commentators.[605]
The tone of the dialogue changes materially when it passes to Pôlus and Kalliklês, the former of whom is described as a writer on rhetoric, and probably a teacher also.[606] There is much insolence in Pôlus, and no small asperity in Sokratês. Yet the former maintains no arguments which justify the charge of immorality against himself or his fellow-teachers. He defends the tastes and sentiments common to every man in Greece, and shared even by the most estimable Athenians, Periklês, Nikias, and Aristokratês;[607] while Sokratês prides himself on standing absolutely alone, and having no support except from his irresistible dialectics, whereby he is sure of extorting reluctant admission from his adversary. How far Sokratês may be right, I do not now inquire: it is sufficient that Pôlus, standing as he does amidst company at once so numerous and so irreproachable, cannot be fairly denounced as a poisoner of the youthful mind.
Pôlus presently hands over the dialogue to Kalliklês, who is here represented, doubtless, as laying down doctrines openly and avowedly anti-social. He distinguishes between the law of nature and the law—both written and unwritten, for the Greek word substantially includes both—of society. According to the law of nature, Kalliklês says, the strong man—the better or more capable man—puts forth his strength to the full for his own advantage, without limit or restraint; overcomes the resistance which weaker men are able to offer; and seizes for himself as much as he pleases of the matter of enjoyment. He has no occasion to restrain any of his appetites or desires; the more numerous and pressing they are, so much the better for him, since his power affords him the means of satiating them all. The many, who have the misfortune to be weak, must be content with that which he leaves them, and submit to it as best they can. This, Kalliklês says, is what actually happens in a state of nature; this is what is accounted just, as is evident by the practice of independent communities, not included in one common political society, towards each other; this is justice, by nature, or according to the law of nature. But when men come into society, all this is reversed. The majority of individuals know very well that they are weak, and that their only chance of security or comfort consists in establishing laws to restrain this strong man, reinforced by a moral sanction of praise and blame devoted to the same general end. They catch him, like a young lion, whilst his mind is yet tender, and fascinate him by talk and training into a disposition conformable to that measure and equality which the law enjoins. Here, then, is justice according to the law of society; a factitious system, built up by the many for their own protection and happiness, to the subversion of the law of nature, which arms the strong man with a right to encroachment and license. Let a fair opportunity occur, and the favorite of Nature will be seen to kick off his harness, tread down the laws, break through the magic circle of opinion around him, and stand forth again as lord and master of the many; regaining that glorious position which nature has assigned to him as his right. Justice by nature, and justice by law and society, are thus, according to Kalliklês, not only distinct, but mutually contradictory. He accuses Sokratês of having jumbled the two together in his argument.[608]
It has been contended by many authors that this anti-social reasoning—true enough, in so far as it states simple[609] matter of fact and probability; immoral, in so far as it erects the power of the strong man into a right; and inviting many comments, if I could find a convenient place for them—represents the morality commonly and publicly taught by the persons called sophists at Athens.[610] I deny this assertion emphatically. Even if I had no other evidence to sustain my denial, except what has been already extracted, from the unfriendly writings of Plato himself, respecting Protagoras and Hippias,—with what we know from Xenophon about Prodikus,—I should consider my case made out as vindicating the sophists generally from such an accusation. If refutation to the doctrine of Kalliklês were needed, it would be obtained quite as efficaciously from Prodikus and Protagoras as from Sokratês and Plato.
But this is not the strongest part of the vindication.
First, Kalliklês himself is not a sophist, nor represented by Plato as such. He is a young Athenian citizen, of rank and station, belonging to the deme Acharnæ; he is intimate with other young men of condition in the city, has recently entered into active political life, and bends his whole soul towards it; he disparages philosophy, and speaks with utter contempt about the sophists.[611] If, then, it were even just, which I do not admit, to infer from opinions put into the mouth of one sophist, that the same were held by another or by all of them, it would not be the less unjust to draw the like inference from opinions professed by one who is not a sophist, and who despises the whole profession.