II. THE SOCRATIC PERIOD.
THE SOPHISTS.
1. The course of Greek speculation now brings me to speak of the Sophists, a class of teachers and thinkers who, in general, have occupied no very high place in the world's esteem, but in whose favour a reaction has of late years taken place. The Sophists came upon the scene when Athens was at the height of her glory. Greece was now the foremost nation in the world, and pre-eminent amid that nation stood forth the Athenian people, with Pericles, the son of Xanthippus, at their head. Around his name, so great in oratory and statesmanship, are clustered a constellation of names equally brilliant in poetry, in science, and in art; and from him this period of Greek history, so rich in every form of intellectual excellence, has derived its name; it is known as the age of Pericles.
2. At this time the Sophists made their appearance as the inaugurators of a new, or, at least, of an extended, system of education. Greece was now alive, to an extent unknown before, with every kind
