4(34 History or the himself of the methods and even of some of the conclusions, which Ztno and Melissus had applied to such a widely different ohject, in order to prove that nothing exists : that even if anything did exist, it would not be cognizable, and even if it both existed and were cognizable, it could not be conveyed and communicated by words. The result was, that absolute knowledge was unattainable and that the proper end of instruc- tion was to awaken in the pupil's mind such conceptions as are suit- able to his own purposes and i terests. The chief distinction between Gorgias and the other Sophists consisted in the frankness with which he admitted, that he promised and professed nothing else than to make his scholars apt rhetoricians; and the ridicule with which he treated those of his colleagues who professed to teach virtue, a peculiarity which Gur<nas shared with all the other Sophists of Sicily. The Sophists in the mother country, on the other hand, endeavoured to awaken useful thoughts, and to teach the principles of practical philosophy: thus Hippias of Eli s endeavoured to season his lessons with a display of mul- tifarious knowledge, and may be regarded as the first Polyhistor among the Greeks:* and Puodicus of Ceos, perhaps the most respectable among the Sophists, used to present lessons of morality under an agree- able form : such a moral lesson was the well-known allegory of the choice of Hercules. In general, however, the labours of the Sophists were prejudicial alike to the moral condition of Greece, and to the serious pursuit of knowledge. The national morality which drew the line between right and wrong, though not perhaps according to the highest standard, yet at any rate with honest views, and what was of most importance, with a sort of instinctive certainty, had received a shock from the boldness with which philosophy had handled it ; and could not but be altogether undermined by a doctrine which destroyed the distinction between truth and false- hood. And though Protagoras and Gorgias shrank from declaring that virtue and religion were nothing but empty illusions, their disciples and followers did so most openly, when the liberty of speculation was com pletelv emancipated from all the restraints of traditionary opinions. In the course of the Peloponnesian war, a class of society was formed at Athens, which was not without influence on the course of affairs, and whose creed was, that justice and belief in the gods were but the inven- tions of ancient rulers and legislators, who gave them currency in order to strengthen their hold on the common herd, and assist them in the business of government : they sometimes gave this opinion with this far
- Plato often speaks of his acquaintance with physics and astronomy : he also
inquired after genealogies, colonies, and "antiquities in general." Hippias Maj . p. 285. Some" fragments of his treatises on political antiquities have been pre- served: probably derived from his Imayuyn. Bockh, Prcef. ad Pindari Scholia, p. xxi. His list of the Olympic victors was also a remarkable work.
