SOPHISTS, a name at first given to philosophers, and those who were remark able for their wisdom : it was afterwards applied to rhetoricians, and lastly to such as spent their time in verbal niceties, logical conundrums. sententious quibbles, and philosophical enigmas. The follow ing„ called the Pseudomenos, for exam ple, was a famous problem amongst tho ancient sophists: "When a man says, I lie, does lie lie, or does he not li-e / If he lies, he speaks truth ; and if he speaks the truth, he lies.'' We find the leading feature of the sophistic doctrine to be IL dislike to everything fixed and necessary, in ethics as well as philosophy. Pre scription was represented as the sole source of moral distinctions, which must consequently vary with the character and institutions of the people. The useful was held to be the only mark by which one opinion could be distinguished from another. An absolute standard of truth is as absurd a notion in speculation as an absolute standard of morals in practice ; that only is true which seems so to the individual, and just as long as it so sec In s "Man is the measure of all things."
These and similar doctrines they main tained with great suhtlety and acuteness, and found numerous disciples among those who were well prepared for the ad mission of tenets which swept, away at once all the remnants of those prejudices which alight still interpose a barrier be tween their passions and their gratifica tion. Considered as a link in the chain of philosophical development, the So phists were doubtless the involuntary cause of the greater depth and sonndness of the subsequent Grecian philosophy. The success which they had found in de molishing the systems of their predeces sors proved the necessity of laying the foundations of human knowledge deeper than heretofore had been done ; and it is thus to the Sophists that we !nay attrib ute the more critical and cautions spirit which distinguishes the doctrines of Pluto and Aristotle from those of Heraclitus m Parmenitles.