SOPHISTS. The Sophists were the leading public teachers in ancient Greece during the 5th and 4th centuries }Lc., and their character has been a subject of much dispute. Most of the historians of philosophy—influenced seemingly by the lampoons of Aris tophanes, the comic poet, and by the disparaging remarks of Plato, and Aristotle, who stood in a quite different position from the teachers by profession— represent the Sophists as "ostentatious impostors, flattering and duping the rich youth for their own personal gain, undermining the morality of Athens, public and private, and encouraging their pupils to unscrupulous ambition and cupidity." Mr. Grote, in his History of Greece, chap. lxvii., has combated these positions, and given a much more favorable view of the Sophists.
A Sophist, in the original sense of the word (derived from sophos, wise or learned), was a wise man, a clever man, one who stood prominently before the public for intel lect or talent. Solon and Pythagoras are called Sophists; the name was applied even to great poets. Socrates was repeatedly so designated; Plato is alluded to by the same title. By the general public, any man of intellectual eminence would be spoken of as a Sophist. ith the feeling of admiration toward the intellectual class, there wail mixed up a certain invidious sentiment, from whatever cause arising; and the name Sophist being often used to express the dislike as well as the admiration, came ultimately to have a predominating bad sense. Still, the general public, in the use of the word, comprehended Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, and their philosophical disciples and followers, equally with the professional teachers.
The great intellectual start made in Greece during the 5th c. B.c., led to an advanced standard of general instruction. There had been an established popular education long before—including music, rending, and recitation—but now there were found, among the public teachers men of the highest accomplishments that the age could. furnish, who taught whatever was known of astronomy, geography, and physics, as -well as the newly started controversial discussions in ethics and in metaphysics. These'
men shared with the other intellectual celebrities the title of Sophist. But there was one circumstance in their case that greatly deepened the invidious sentiment—they taught for pay. This brought them under the odium of two classes: in the first place, the poor, who could not afford the fees, felt themselves in- a new position of inequality with the rich; secondly, the philosophers, properly so called, who had not yet begun to receive money from their disciples, held in contempt those that did. Both Socrates and Plato had a vehement repugnance to the idea of a money-bargain between master and pupil; in their eyes, the relationship was one of pure attachment and devotion; and they considered that all the invidious part of the designation Sophist, and more, was richly deserved by the teachers for hire; and as these public teachers, by the nature of their vocation, would probably be often shallow and superficial, as compared with the great philosophers, we can understand the full definition of Sophist by Aristotle " an impostrous pretender to knowledge, a man who employs what he knows to be fallacy, for the purpose of deceit and of getting money." With all the great authority of Aristotle, this charge applied indiscriminately to the body of men employed in training youth for active life, will not bear investigation. Enough is known of the lives, characters, and doctrines of the class to refute the accusation. The Sophists were a profession growing out of the circumstances, and supplying a want, of the age. The most valuable ideas and habits of any accomplished Athenian were due to his education under some teacher of the class Rhetor or Sophist. So far from the age of the Sophists being an age of corrupted public morality, Mr. Grote contends that it was the reverse. He adduces a multitude of historical facts to prove that the morality of the Athenian public was greatly improved at the end of the 5th c. B.C., as compared with the begin ning of that century.