Chapter 22

CHAPTER IX

THE SOPHISTS

The first period of Greek philosophy closes with Anaxago-
ras. His doctrine of the world-forming intelligence intro-
duced a new principle into philosophy, the principle of the
antithesis between corporeal matter and incorporeal mind,
and therefore, by implication, the antithesis between na-
ture and man. And if the first period of philosophy has
for its problem the origin of the world, and the explanation
of the being and becoming of nature, the second period of
philosophy opens, in the Sophists, with the problem of the
position of man in the universe. The teaching of the ear-
lier philosophers was exclusively cosmological, that of the
Sophists exclusively humanistic. Later in this second pe-
riod, these two modes of thought come together and fructify
one another. The problem of the mind and the problem of
nature are subordinated as factors of the great, universal,
all-embracing, world-systems of Plato and Aristotle.

It is not possible to understand the activities and teaching

of the Sophists without some knowledge of the religious,

political, and social conditions of the time. After long

struggles between the people and the nobles, democracy

had almost everywhere triumphed. But in Greece democ-

racy did not mean what we now mean by {107} that word.

It did not mean representative institutions, government by

the people through their elected deputies. Ancient Greece

was never a single nation under a single government. Ev-

ery city, almost every hamlet, was an independent State,

governed only by its own laws. Some of these States were

so small that they comprised merely a handful of citizens.

All were so small that all the citizens could meet together

in one place, and themselves in person enact the laws and

transact public business. There was no necessity for repre-

sentation. Consequently in Greece every citizen was himself

a politician and a legislator. In these circumstances, par-

tisan feeling ran to extravagant lengths. Men forgot the