Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/387

 PROTAGORAS. 365 elucidate the ambiguities of words, and to point out the different significations of terras apparently, but not really, equivalent For this Plato often ridicules him, and the modern historians of philosophy generally think it right to adopt the same tone, Whether the execution of the work was at all adequate to its purpose, we have no means of judging ; but assuredly the pur- pose was one preeminently calculated to aid Grecian thinkers and dialecticians ; for no man can study their philosophy without seeing how lamentably they were hampered by enslavement to the popular phraseology, and by inferences founded on mere verbal analogy. At a time when neither dictionary nor grammai existed, a teacher who took care, even punctilious care, in fixing the meaning of important words of his discourse, must be con- sidered as guiding the minds of his hearers in a salutary direc- tion ; salutary, we may add, even to Plato himself, whose spec- ulations would most certainly have been improved by occasional hints from such a monitor. Protagoras, too, is said to have been the first who discrimi nated and gave names to the various modes and forms of address, an analysis well calculated to assist his lessons on right speaking: 1 he appears also to have been the first who distinguished the three genders of nouns. We hear further of a treatise which he wrote on wrestling, or most probably on gymnastics generally, as well as a collection of controversial dialogues. 2 But his most celebrated treatise was one entitled " Truth," seemingly on philosophy gen- erally. Of this treatise, we do not even know the general scope or purport. In one of his treatises, he confessed his inability to satisfy himself about the existence of the gods, in these words : 3 " Respecting the gods, I neither know whether they exist, nor 1 Quintilian, Inst. Orat. iii, 4, 10 ; Aristot. Rhetor, iii, 5. Sec the passages cited in Prcllcr, Ilistor. Philos. cli. iv, p. 132. note V^VT<I fidevai, ij TE (5^A6r^f, KOI fipaxfy tiv 6 /3tof rov &v9p&irov. I give the words partly from Diogenes, partly from Scxtus, as I think fcey would be most likely to stand.
 * Isokrates. Or. x, Encom. Helen, sect. 3 ; Diogcn. Laert. ix, 54.