Page:Ferrier Works vol 2 1888 LECTURES IN GREEK PHILOSOPHY.pdf/269

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GREEK PHILOSOPHY.

assured at least in so far as the individual affected by the sensations was concerned—that it threw all the other mental phenomena completely into the shade. The Sophists indeed held, as I have said, that there were no other mental phenomena, no phenomena which were not resolvable into one form or other of sensation, no phenomena which had not their origin in this all-comprehensive endowment. But the question may be raised, Is sensation thus exclusive and all-comprehensive? Is it the all in all of human nature? Is it the one and only endowment of man, viewed even in his most elementary condition as an isolated and unsocial individual? That was precisely the question which Socrates raised, and he answered it in the negative. Man is not a mere series of sensations. Even in his most primitive state, and as he comes from the hands of nature, there are elements within him entirely different from sensation. This position was equivalent to declaring, that the analysis or inquiry of the Sophists had been partial and incomplete. And such, I said, was the position taken up by Socrates at the outset.

5. I remarked on a former occasion, that thought or thinking was a phenomenon, was rather the phenomenon, which the Sophists had neglected to take into account. In prosecuting their inquiries they had, of course, made use of thought, for they could not have conducted their researches or their arguments without it; but they had employed it merely as the