3. TENDENCIES OF THE SOPHISTIC PHILOSOPHY.—To give a definite classification of the Sophistic philosophy, which should be derived from the conception of the general phenomena of the age, is exceedingly difficult, since, like the French “clearing up” of the last century, it entered into every department of knowledge. The Sophists directed the universal culture of the time. Protagoras was known as a teacher of virtue, Gorgias as a rhetorician and politician, Prodicus as a grammarian and teacher of synonyms, Hippias as a man of various attainments, who besides astronomical and mathematical studies busied himself with a theory of mnemonics; others took for their problem the art of education, and others still the explanation of the old poets; the brothers Euthydemus and Dionysidorus gave instruction in the bearing of arms and military tactics; many among them, as Gorgias, Prodicus, and Hippias, were intrusted with embassies: in short the Sophists, each one according to his individual tendency, took upon themselves every variety of calling and entered into every sphere of science; their method is the only thing common to all. Moreover the relation of the Sophists to the educated public, their striving after popularity, fame and money, disclose the fact that their studies and occupations were for the most part controlled, not by a subjective scientific interest, but by some external motive. With that roving spirit which was an essential peculiarity of the later Sophists, travelling from city to city, and announcing themselves as thinkers by profession—and giving their instructions with prominent reference to a good recompense and the favor of the rich private classes, it was very natural that they should discourse upon the prominent questions of universal interest and of public culture, with occasional reference also to the favorite occupation of this or that rich man with whom they might be brought in contact. Hence their peculiar strength lay far more in a formal dexterity, in an acuteness of thought and a capacity of bringing it readily into exercise, in the art of discourse than in any positive knowledge; their instruction in virtue was given either in positive dogmatism or in empty bombast, and even where the Sophistic philosophy became really polymathic, the art of speech still remained as the great thing. So we find in Xenophon, Hippias boasting that he can speak repeatedly upon every subject and say something new each time, while we hear it expressly affirmed of others, that they had no need of positive knowledge in order to discourse satisfactorily upon every thing, and to answer every question extemporaneously; and when many Sophists make it a great point to hold a well-arranged discourse about something of the least possible significance (_e. g._ salt), so do we see that with them the thing was only a means while the word was the end, and we ought not to be surprised that in this respect the Sophistic philosophy sunk to