Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/419

 THE SOPHISTS. 397 arithmetic : but tuo range of what is called special science, pos- sessed even by the teacher, was at that time very limited ; and the matter of instruction communicated was expressed under the general title of " Words, or Discourses," which were always taught by the sophists, in connection with thought, and in refer- ence to a practical use. The capacities of thought, speech, and action, are conceived in conjunction by Greeks generally, and by teachers like Isokrates and Quintilian especially ; and when young men in Greece, like the Boeotian Proxenus, put themselves under training by Gorgias or any other sophist, it was with a view of qualifying themselves, not merely to speak, but to act. 1 Most of the pupils of the sophists, as of Sokrates 2 himself, were young men of wealth ; a fact, at which Plato sneers, and others copy him, as if it proved that they cared only about high pay. But I do not hesitate to range myself on the side of I*o- krates, 3 and to contend that the sophist himself had much to lose by corrupting his pupils, an argument used by Sokrates in defending himself before the dikastery, and just as valid m defence of Protagoras or Prodikus, 4 and strong personal interest in sending them forth accomplished and virtuous ; that the best-taught youth were decidedly the most free from crime and the most active towards good ; that among the valuable ideas and feelings which a young Athenian had in his mind, as well as among the good pursuits which he followed, those which he learned from the sophists counted nearly as the best ; that, ii the contrary had been the fact, fathers would not have continued so to send their sons, and pay their money. It was not merely 1 Xcnoph.Amibas.il, 6. Upo^cvof si'dvc peipuKiov uv ijp ru (isya^.a. Trpurretv titUVQf' Kai did. ravrrjv TIJV Topyia upyiipiov TU Aeovr/r^. . . . Toaovruv <5' ixitivfi ov av Kal TOVTO tl%tv t UTI TOVTUV oiitiev av d7.oi KTuofiai //erd d ci/./lu avv T(f> 6iKalif> Hat K i/'iero detv TOVTUV Tvy^uvetv, uvev 6e TOITUV firj. Proxenus, as described by his friend Xenophon, was certainly a man who did no dishonor to the moral teaching of Gorgias. The connection between thought, speech, and action, is seen even in th jests of AristophanCs upon the purposes of Sokrates and the sophists : XiKilv rrpuTTuv Kal (3ov?.evuv Kal r/; ylurrri 77o2.f / u,ji> (NutrOS, 418). 3 See Isokr. Or. xv, De Perm, sects. 218, 233. 235, 245. 234, 257 4 Plato, Apol. Sokrat. c. 13, p 25, D.
 * Plato, Apol. Sokr. c. 10, p. 23, C ; Protagoras, p. 328, C.