Page:The Journal of Classical and Sacred Philology, Volume 1, 1854.djvu/196

 186 Journal of Philology. whose admirable delineation of the intellectual and moral cha- racter of Socrates sets the distinction between him and the Sophists in the clearest light, could ever have spoken of him as their representative; however, as he does not except this part of the Reviewer's summary from the approbation which he ex- presses of it as a whole, I must endeavour in as few words as I can to point out the essential difference in almost all points between them. Socrates was a man of serious and earnest pur- pose, who acting under the persuasion of a divine mission devoted a life passed in poverty and self-denial to the instruction and improvement of his countrymen; and for this end he em- ployed all his efforts to eradicate from their minds the false conceit of knowledge, and to convince them of their ignorance as the first step towards the attainment of true wisdom. This he endeavoured to effect by the exercise of a very peculiar method ; those cross-examining dialectics which have been since unrivalled as they were before unprecedented. The only pro- fession he made was that of universal ignorance. He never pretended to teach rhetoric, or indeed virtue except indirectly ; though he freely offered good advice to those who sought it. He never took fees for such instruction as he gave. He was the founder of true philosophy ; since he first, as Aristotle tells us in the well known passages of the Metaphysics, intro- duced inductive reasoning and general definitions, "both of which belong to the very foundation of science." Finally, his influence was exerted for good upon those with whom he came in contact, as Xenophon shows at large in the Memorabilia. As there was a Judas amongst the Apostles, so there might be an Aristippus, an Alcibiades, and a Critias, amongst Socrates' inti- mates; but upon the whole, as Xenophon assures us, his teaching was beneficial, as his intentions were honest. The Sophists of whom he was "the representative" were showy ostentatious pretenders to universal accomplishments, who professed to give instructions in rhetoric and virtue ; dishonest rhetoric and questionable virtue ; the latter of which they failed to teach as Xenophon and Isocratcs, to say nothing of Plato and Aristotle, attest. Their philosophy tended to pure scep- ticism, and their method of reasoning has become a by-word : in Ethics they taught that virtue is a convention, and in religion that the existence of the gods was an open question: they