Against the Sophists

If all who are engaged in the profession of education were willing to state the facts instead of making greater promises than they can possibly fulfill, they would not be in such bad repute with the lay-public. As it is, however, the teachers who do not scruple to vaunt their powers with utter disregard of the truth have created the impression that those who choose a life of careless indolence are better advised than those who devote themselves to serious study. Indeed, who can fail to abhor, yes to contemn, those teachers, in the first place, who devote themselves to disputation,[*](Captious argumentation in the field of ethics. He is not thinking of Socrates, who did not teach for pay, nor of Plato's dialectic, which was not yet famous, but of the minor Socratics, especially Antisthenes and Eucleides, who taught for money while affecting contempt for it. In general he is thinking of such quibblers as are later shown up in Plato's Euthydemus. See General Introd. pp. xxi ff.) since they pretend to search for truth, but straightway at the beginning of their professions attempt to deceive us with lies?[*](Theirs is a cloud morality, not truth to live by on earth. Cf. Isoc. 13.20. See General Introd. p. xxii.)

For I think it is manifest to all that foreknowledge of future events is not vouchsafed to our human nature, but that we are so far removed from this prescience[*](There is, according to Isocrates, no “science” which can teach us to do under all circumstances the things which will insure our happiness and success. Life is too complicated for that, and no man can foresee exactly the consequences of his acts—“the future is a thing unseen.” All that education can do is to develop a sound judgement (as opposed to knowledge) which will meet the contingencies of life with resourcefulness and, in most cases, with success. This is a fundamental doctrine of his “philosophy” which he emphasizes and echoes again and again in opposition to the professors of a “science of virtue and happiness.” See General Introd. pp. xxvii ff.) that Homer, who has been conceded the highest reputation for wisdom, has pictured even the gods as at times debating among themselves about the future[*](See Hom. Il. 16.431 ff. and Hom. Il. 16.652 ff.; Hom. Il. 22.168 ff.)—not that he knew their minds but that he desired to show us that for mankind this power lies in the realms of the impossible.