Page:Ferrier Works vol 2 1888 LECTURES IN GREEK PHILOSOPHY.pdf/259

204 of the psychology of the Sophists must be pronounced to be virtually of a purely selfish character. The same law of nature which makes a man susceptible of pleasure and of pain, giving no other guides, imposes on him the duty of securing the one and of avoiding the other to the utmost degree in which they can be secured and avoided.

25. Thus furnished by nature, man is turned adrift into the world. He comes upon the scene equipped with sensations which constitute his very existence, and with a natural code of ethics which oblige him to preserve himself and to enjoy himself as much as he possibly can. Thus the isolated man, man as he comes from nature, man with his individual interests, is the measure of the universe to himself. Whatever his sensations bring home to him as true and real is true and real for him, whatever it may be in itself His sensations are for him true and real, although all beyond should be illusion or nonentity, and these sensations are for him the universe. Then again, whatever promotes agreeable sensations is right for him, whatever it may be in itself; whatever promotes disagreeable sensations is wrong for him, whatever it may be in itself. Thus man is, as the Sophists say, the measure of the universe. His individual nature measures and determines its reality. His individual nature measures and determines what in the universe is right and what in the universe is wrong.