Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/383

 P),ATO MISINTERPRETED. 361 verts Plato into an insincere disputant, and a sophist in the mod- ern sense, at the very moment when the commentator is extolling his pure and lofty morality as an antidote against the alleged corruption of Gorgias and Protagoras. Plato has devoted a long and interesting dialogue to the inquiry, What is a sophist? 1 and it is curious to observe that the definition which he at last brings out suits Sokrates himself, intellectually speaking, better than any one else whom we know. Cicero defines the sophist to be one who pursues philosophy for the sake of ostentation or of gain ; a which, if it is to be held as a reproach, will certainly bear hard upon the great body of modern teachers, who are determined to embrace their profession and to discharge its important duties, like other professional men, by the prospect either of deriving an income or of making a figure in it, or both, whether they have any peculiar relish for the occupation or not. But modern writers, in describing Protagoras or Gorgias, while they adopt the sneering language of Plato against teaching for pay, low purposes, tricks to get money from the rich, etc., use terms which lead the reader to believe that there was something in these sophists peculiarly greedy, exorbitant, and truckling ; something beyond the mere fact of asking and receiving remu neration. Now not only there is no proof that any of them were thus dishonest or exorbitant, but in the case of Protagoras, even his enemy Pluto furnishes a proof that he was not so. In the - F;:rilf apparct Socratcm anjutA, qua; vcrbo tyaiveadat incst,dilogid intcr- locutorcm (Hippiam Sophistam) infraudcm inducere." " Illud quidcm pro certo ct cxplorato habcmus, non serio sed ridendi vexandique Sophists yrntiA gravissiinam illam tententican in dubitationem vocari, ideoque iisconckisiunculis Inbcfactari, quas quilihct paulo attcntior facile intclligat non ad fideni faci cndam, sed ad lusum jocumquc, cssc comparatas." 1 Plato, Sophistcs, c. 52, p. 268. tione (c. 13), introduces a sharp censure upon the sophists, with very little that is specific or distinct. He accuses them of teaching command and artifice of words, instead of communicating useful maxims ; of speaking for purposes of deceit, or for their own profit, and addressing themselves to rich pupils for pay; while the philosopher gives his lessons to every one gratui- tously, without distinction of persons. This is the same distinction as that taken by Sokrates and Plato, between the sophist and the philosopher: compare Xenoph. DC Vectigal. r, 4. VOL. VIII 16
 * Cicero, Academ. iv, 23. Xcnopbon, at the close of his treatise De Vena-