self-asserting, stamped, multiplied, and kept in circulation by the unpremeditated conspiracy of the general public — the omniprcsent agency of King Nomos[1] and his numerous volunteers.” This common standard of virtue Protagoras fully accepts. He takes it[2] "for granted that justice, virtue, good, evil, &c., are known, indisputable, determinate data, fully understood and unanmnously interpreted.” He pretends not to set right the general opinion, but[3] "teaches in his eloquent expositions and interpretations the same morality, public and private, that every one else tcaches; while he can perform the work of teaching somewhat more effectively than they:” and[4] "what he pretends to do, beyond the general public, 110 really can do.” Sokrates, (or Plato under his name) not accepting this common standard, and not considering justice, virtue, good, and evil, as things understood, but as things whose essence, and the proper meaning of the words, remain to be found out, of course contests the point with Protagoras; and bringing to bear on him the whole power of the Sokratic cross-examination, convicts him of being unable to give any definition or theory of these things; an incapacity which, in Platonic speech, goes by the name of not knowing what they are. The inability of Protagoras to discuss, and of his opinions to resist
- ↑ Νόμος ὃ πάντων βασιλεύς. an expression of Pindar, cited by Herodotus (as well as by Pluto himself in the Gorgias), and very happily applied, on many occasions, by Mr. Grote. ”The large sense of the Word Νόμος, as received by Pindar and Herodotus, must be kept in mind, comprising positive morality, religious ritual, cnnsecrated habits, and local turns of sympathy and antipathy,” &c. (Grote, vol. i. p. 262, note.) Νόμος, thus understood. includes all that is enjuinod by law, custom, or the general sentiment, and all that is voluntarily accepted in reliance on these.
- ↑ Grote, vol. ii. p. 47.
- ↑ Ibid. p. 44.
- ↑ Ibid. p. 73.
