Schools of ancient philosophy Author:Schools Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER IV. THE SOPHISTS. The tendency of the human mind to seek out " many inventions," and thus to obscure even the slight knowledge which it is able una... more »ided to ascertain, is clearly manifested in the history of the Sophists. This sect sprang from the insufficiency of former doctrines to solve the problem of existence, and ended in a total denial of truth as universally valid, or of right as existing otherwise than by convention. Even this irrational school, however, has its defenders; in fact, its extreme impudence seems to have elicited a debased and morbid admiration, though its peculiar characteristic was to depreciate religious sentiment by taking advantage of conflicting opinions, and to involve the moral principle in the incredulity of universal doubt. This depraved tendency was increased by thecorruption of the rhetorical art, which, by the Sophists, was perverted, under the specious pretext of a scientific doctrine of fallacies, into the promulgation of corrupt knowledge, and a spirit of incredulous investigation. The progress of error was rapid. As the mind of the Grecian youth became imbued with contempt for the vicious representations and heathen legends of the gods, so in the absence of revealed truth, for " the world by wisdom knew not God," the transition was easy to a denial both of reward for the righteous, and of a God that judgeth the world. Sophistical argument, by which evil appeared good, and good evil, engrossed the attention alike of the teacher and the pupil, until both were speedily involved in total scepticism; and the only benefits which accrued from the labours of those professors who used the Sophistical art in the education of youth, were an improvement in style, and greater accuracy in logical definition. These, indeed, it must be confess...« less