with the critical and individualistic disposition, manifested itself in the class of philosophers of that time called the Sophists.

SECTION II. THE SOPHISTS.

The main contradictions in the system of the Eleatics and Heraclitus, rest and eternal motion, unity and multiplicity, were not satisfactorily solved by the three philosophers with whom we have last dealt.

'Now,' the critically disposed will say, 'the Eleatic maintains that motion in the universe rests upon deception of our senses; Heraclitus, that we are deceived when we believe that we perceive stagnation in the universe, -may they not both be right in their imputation, i.e. may we not be deceived both ways? Nay, by their very statements I will prove that both were deceived when they thought that true perception was even possible. If, according to the Eleatics, there is but one immutable being, no special existences, then is there no difference at all, and we cannot have object and subject, the perceiving and the perceived, without which all perception is inconceivable. If, according to Heraclitus, all is in continual fluctuation, the things perceived and we ourselves perceiving must vary with every moment-and we cannot speak of a true perception.

'There is no cognition, no truth.'

We become conscious of things through our impressions-everything is as it appears at every moment. If

we add to these philosophical views the individualistic tendency of the time, we can well understand the proposition of Protagoras: 'The measure of all things is

man.'

Some of these Sophists, such as Protagoras, are not to be condemned with one sweeping assertion; they were very subtle thinkers, and acted in accordance with elevated convictions.

The inferior sort were Sceptics, ie. they said that all knowing consisted of personal opinion, which is ever varying,—therefore there is no uniform cognition. The proposition, 'Man is the measure of all,' is easily changed to 'men,' or rather, 'Each man is the measure of all things.' There is but a small step from this point to the principle,—A man's aim is to put himself forward, to further his own interest, to make as much of himself as possible. And so the smaller fry of Sophists rapidly degenerated into mercenary charlatans. Their main object was to make show of themselves, and to teach others how to do the same. They became all-knowers, polyhistors, and taught young men everything. They travelled about from town to town teaching for fees, a course never before pursued among Greek philosophers, who, up to that period, had even sacrificed their own. fortunes to follow science. They showed their immense amount of knowledge, or rather dexterity, so that the people stared with wonder. At every moment they were ready to deliver orations on any subject; on candles, on salt, on the immortality of the soul, and on virtue. They taught young men rhetoric, philosophy, politics, fencing, dancing, gymnastics,—everything.

Their chief aim was to baffle their adversaries with dexterous fallacies, and putting the question in such a manner that the answer could but be absurd. A Sophist would propose to speak in favour of a subject, and immediately after against it. Thirst for truth became thirst for distinction, quality became quantity, truth immediate interest, and wisdom became skill.

When a normal healthy man has passed through a revolution of his system, some acute illness, convalescence follows, a rapid regeneration of his whole organism. He exerts his energies with renewed vigour, and feels his strength with renewed consciousness. His illness has cast off many morbid germs which before lay hidden from view, and he now feels what a blessing health is. He is conscious of his strength, which before mastered him, and can now economise it and turn it to greater advantage. The blessing of his illness is, that he now knows his own powers, and can thus adapt them as means to the ends which they

can master.

The great merit of the Sophists who mark the period of systematic revolution, was, that they turned man's eyes inwards to the subject, made him consider his own powers there, before he attempted to study the world. We have the positive expression of this in Socrates.

SECTION III.-SOCRATES.

There are events, facts, feelings, thoughts, and doctrines which hold a markedly independent position in our mind; their right of existence seems to rest wholly

in themselves, and we need not call the agents of their existence to help us in apprehending them-they are of a self-sufficient nature.

No person now-a-days would need to bring before his consciousness the mother country of the United States of America-England-in order to apprehend that State; but no one could at present conceive politically Canada, unless there were some representation of Great Britain, as it were, accompanying it in immediate proximity, or at greater distance within his conscious

ness.

But

The old Norse saga the 'Edda, and the German Niebelungen-Lied,' exist in the consciousness of the people perfectly distinct from their authors-unknown to the present day,—and the question of the authorship of these wonderful works is one taken up by people specially interested in these matters, who in fact have made research in this direction their vocation. when we read some of the lyrics of Heine, of Leopardi, of De Musset, or of Shelley, we sub-consciously and subvoluntarily place some personal conception of these authors in the background of any special representation of their works, which lets these individual emanations stand forth in bold relief. Our representation of the solar system, of many of the laws of nature and of thought, may exist in our minds, without any allusion to the originators of these conceptions.

The doctrines of St. Augustine and St. Thomas have been amalgamated with the whole of Christian Dogmatics, and most people know nothing of their origin; but there are religious doctrines and principles which are

essentially knit up with grand and deep figures in history;—without these personages they would be empty and void. Such were the teachings of the German and Netherlands mystics in the thirteenth and fourteenth century, deeply rooted in the hearts of the teachers (mighty and grand men), and mightily and grandly moving all that listened to them. Such men were Eckhardt, Heinrich von Berg, Johann Tauler in Germany; and in the Netherlands, Johann Rusbrok, and Geert de Groot, and Thomas Hamerling. Later on in Germany (sixteenth and seventeenth century) the same Protestant movement by men like Schleugler, Franck, Weigel, Boehm, and others, and in England the great type of this anti-dogmatic practical religious nature in Wesley. Religion in him, and men of that sort, was a fact, an action, a feeling in itself, not a feeling of something else; it filled their whole nature at every moment, and was not an adopted method of viewing life and things-it was their nature. And so every one of their actions and their expressions was part of their teaching-a Christian life. and not a Christian creed. This cannot be imitated; it can only be lived through. When once the whole mental atmosphere of a time, and the lively interest which at such times attaches itself to personalities, changes and becomes extinct, a repetition of such teachings may become lifeless and soulless. Such principles may be carried out and carried on, but not repeated.

A life cannot be completely imitated. An attempt at this proves to be imitation of certain features in such a life.