We have, however, accepted the word at the value which Plato chose to put upon it; but we must not suppose that this was the value at which it was usually current. This is clear from the fact that Isocrates can use the word without any idea of disparagement.
Though he wrote a speech Against the Sophists, it is directed not against the profession as a whole, but against certain classes, whom he calls the ἀγέλαιοι σοφισταί—‘Sophists of the baser sort.’
Isocrates’ earliest work on education, the speech or tract Against the Sophists (Or. xiii.), dates from the beginning of his professional career, perhaps about the year 390 B.C. We possess only part, perhaps less than half, of the speech. What remains is purely destructive criticism which, as is clear from the concluding words, was meant to lead up to an exposition of the writer’s own principles and theory. The loss is to be regretted, but is not irreparable, since the speech On the Antidosis, composed thirty-five years later, supplements it by a full constructive statement.
The introduction on the Sophists is sweeping in its severity:[197]
‘If all our professional educators would be content to tell the truth and not promise more than they ever intend to perform, they would not have a bad reputation among laymen. As it is, their reckless effrontery has encouraged the opinion that a life of incurious idleness is better than one devoted to philosophy.’
He proceeds to criticize various classes:
‘We cannot help hating and despising the professors of contentious argument (eristic), who, while claiming to seek for Truth, introduce falsehood at the very beginning of their pretensions. They profess in a way to read the future, a power which Homer denied even to the gods; for they prophesy for their pupils a full knowledge of right conduct, and promise them happiness in consequence. This invaluable commodity they offer for sale at the ridiculous price of three or four minae. They affect, indeed, to despise money—mere dross of silver or gold as they call it—yet, for the sake of this small profit they will raise their pupils almost to a level with the immortals. They profess to teach all virtue; but it is notable that pupils, before they are admitted to the course, have to give security for the payment of their fees.’
The general tone of this censure recalls the attacks of the Platonic Socrates on the ‘eristic’ Sophists; but it is certain that the ‘eristics,’ whom Isocrates here attacks, are some of the lesser Socratics. This is made obvious by the reference in § 3 to the knowledge (ἐπιστήμη) which, according to these teachers, will lead to right conduct or virtue, and so to happiness. The Socratic view that knowledge is the basis of virtue, and virtue of happiness, is well known. Socrates himself did not profess to teach virtue for a fee; but the Megarians, the followers of his pupil Euclides, did, and at them the sarcasm of Isocrates seems to be directed. Elsewhere, indeed, Isocrates refers definitely to the Platonic school as belonging to the eristic class.[198]
The teachers of ‘Political Discourse’ fall next under ban, that is, the teachers of practical rhetoric, whether forensic or deliberative.[199] ‘They care nothing for truth’—whereas the eristics, at any rate, professed to seek it—‘they consider that their profession is to attract as many pupils as possible by the smallness of their fees and the greatness of their promises. They are so dull, and think others so dull, that though the speeches which they write are worse than many non-professionals can improvise, they undertake to make of their pupils orators equal to any emergency. They say that they can teach oratory as easily as the alphabet, which is a subject fixed by unchangeable rules, whereas the conditions for a speaker are never quite the same on two occasions. A speech, to be successful, must be appropriate to the subject, to the occasion, and to the speaker; and in some degree original. Instruction can give us technical skill; but cannot call into existence the oratorical faculty, which a good speaker must have innate in him.’
No doubt Isocrates himself professed to give a practical training for public life; but he states here what he repeats with more emphasis in a later writing:[200] ‘For distinction either in speech or in action, or in any other work, there are three requisites: natural aptitude, theoretical training, and practical experience.... Of these the first is indispensable, and by far the most important.’ The Sophists claimed to dispense with the first, and this is the ground of the philosopher’s quarrel with them.