Page:The Journal of Classical and Sacred Philology, Volume 1, 1854.djvu/156

 146 Journal of PJiilology. investigation of historical truth to endeavour to set the matter in its true light. It may be thought that if the attempt were to be made at all it should have been made earlier, Mr Grote's eighth volume having been three or four years before the world. However, though this is a matter hardly worth an explanation, I may say, that on the first appearance of the volume, from the cursory perusal which I then bestowed upon this portion of it, I was led away, like so many others, by the plausibility of its reasoning : and it was not until recently, when I became more intimately acquainted with its contents, that I saw reason to entertain doubts of the soundness of its conclusions, which further researches into the subject have only developed and confirmed. I desire to speak of Mr Grote with the respect due to the great name which he has made himself in literature, and the im- portant services which he has conferred upon Greek history ; and I trust that he himself, whose candour and courtesy I have already experienced, will excuse me if, whilst I bear fully in mind the vast distance which separates the critic from the author of a great work, I venture to controvert his positions, and to point out the defects which I believe to exist in his argument. Mr Grote, who usually pretty nearly exhausts any subject which he takes in hand, has supplied me with no inconsiderable portion of the materials for my criticism. There are however several passages bearing upon the question, some of great import- ance, which he has either altogether omitted, or only slightly referred to : but I am bound to acknowledge that he has put into my hands not a few of the weapons which I am about so ungratefully to employ against himself. Having made these acknowledgements, which are no more than what are due to the learning and ability of the work under consideration, I proceed to enter upon the task that I have undertaken. The main points in which Mr Grote's representation of the Sophists differs from the view commonly held are enumerated in a summary by a writer in the Quarterly Review, which Mr Grote accepts as a fair statement of his general drift, p. 549, not. They are that the Sophists were not a sect, i. e. had no common doc- trines or philosophical creed but a class or profession ; were united, that is, only by the common object which they had in