Page:The Journal of Classical and Sacred Philology, Volume 1, 1854.djvu/166

 156 Journal of Philology. for that time and place is justice.] All these are principles of men wise in the eyes of youth, poets as well as prose-writers : who assert that whatsoever a man makes to prevail by force is perfect justice : whence impious notions get possession of the minds of youths, who are led to think that the Gods whom the law enjoins them to believe in have no existence ; and quarrels and seditions are engendered whilst they drag [their followers] towards the true life according to nature, which is in fact to bear rule over one's fellow-creatures and not to be a slave to others according to law 7 / One could hardly desire a better illustration of the applica- tion of the Protagorean principle 'a man is the standard of everything to himself/ to religion and political and social ethics, than the passage above quoted. It leads at once to Atheism : and, allowing each individual to set up for himself his own standard of right and wrong, virtually abrogates all universal principles to which mankind appeal, and suffers every man to do what is right in his own eyes. Man makes himself the mea- sure of the existence of the Gods and the same rule may be applied to the God of the Christian as to the Gods of the heathen and they become phantoms of the brain, creatures of political convenience : of justice and the laws, and they become mere conventions, devoid of force and authority : until from step 7 Mr Grote, p. 530, note 1, appears warrant Ritter and Brandis in their to deny the reference of this extract to opinion. The passages which I have the Sophists: and accuses Ritter and cited seem to me fully sufficient to fix Brandis of error in ascribing to them the reference upon the Sophists ; though the tenet which maintains that there is I do not deny that others besides them no right by nature, but only by conven- may be included in the description : tion. " No w Plato, "he continues, (Legg. whoever the persons may be who are X. 889,) "whom these writers refer to, thus described, it cannot at any rate be charges certain wise men owpofo Ibiw- denied, that the principles they thus tos T6 Kal woirjTdi (he does not mention sought to inculcate were highly immo- Sophists) with wickedness, but on the ral and mischievous. It will be observ- ground directly opposite ; because they ed that Mr Grote translates 0i?<rts (in did acknowledge a right by nature, of the phrase 1k6vtw vpbs rbv Kara 0iW greater authority than the right laid down ipdbv filov), *' the right of nature," which by the legislator; and because they en- would make Plato and the maintainers couraged pupils to follow this supposed of the theory contradict themselves, right of nature, disobeying the law." They acknowledged no justice by <p6ais, Plato's words are, ra Si 8ri Sbetua but only by v6/xos ; the life they recom- obb' efrcu rb Tra.pA.irav 0tW ytyvb- mended their pupils to follow was not fieva rixm xal vbfUM dX* ov Si) run just, but right according to nature, i. e. tpfoct, which are surely sufficient to their own interest.