Page:Ferrier Works vol 2 1888 LECTURES IN GREEK PHILOSOPHY.pdf/253

h|198|GREEK PHILOSOPHY.|}} any subsequent philosophers; at any rate they were the first to broach it. In their language the question would be put thus, What is man by nature (), and what is he by convention and fashion ()? The exposition of what man is by nature would constitute the psychology of the Sophists; the exposition of what he is by convention would constitute their ethics. But it is not difficult to see that, arising out of their psychology and immediately connected with it, there would be what we may call a code of natural ethics, as distinguished from that code of conventional or social or artificial ethics to which the name of ethics is more properly applied. Indeed this word ethics is properly applied to man only when in society; still it may be allowable to apply it to man in a pure state of nature when we explain it as meaning those natural commands which prompt and impel every sentient creature to gratify its wants.

20. Before touching on any of these points, either on the psychology or the ethics of the Sophists, let me call your attention to an important consideration which throws, I think, much light on their mode of inquiry. The consideration is this, that whatever can be shown to be imposed upon man by Nature, must be more binding and authoritative than that which is imposed upon him merely by society. Nature's commands must be obeyed first, because Nature is primary and fundamental; society's commands must be obeyed only in the second instance,