nd he must
admit that they are right in their refusal. The conclusion is, that
all mankind, including Protagoras himself, will deny that he speaks
truly; and his truth will be true neither to himself nor to anybody
else" (Jowett, _Plato_, iv. pp. 239 _sqq._)

The refutation seems tolerably complete, but a good deal had to happen
before Greece was ready to accept or Plato to offer such a refutation.

{92}

CHAPTER X

THE SOPHISTS (_concluded_)

_Nothing knowable--The solitude of scepticism--The lawlessness of
scepticism--The good in scepticism_

[183]

Gorgias was perhaps even more eminent a Sophist than Protagoras. He
was a native of Leontini in Sicily, and came to Athens in the year 427
B.C. on a public embassy from his native city. The splendid reputation
for political and rhetorical ability, which preceded him to Athens, he
fully justified both by his public appearances before the Athenian
assembly, and by the success of his private instructions to the crowds
of wealthy young men who resorted to him. He dressed in magnificent
style, and affected a lofty and poetical manner of speech, which
offended the more critical, but which pleased the crowd.

[181]

He also, like Protagoras, published a treatise in which he expounded
his fundamental principles, and like Protagoras, he preceded it with a
striking if somewhat ironical title, and an apophthegm in which he
summarised his doctrine. The title of his work was _Of the
Non-Existent_, that is, _Of Nature_, and {93} his dictum, "Nothing
exists, or if anything exists, it cannot be apprehended by man, and
even if it could be apprehended, the man who apprehended it could not
expound or explain it to his neighbour." In support of this strange
doctrine, Gorgias adopted the quibbling method of argument which had
been applied with some success to dialectical purposes by Zeno,
Melissus, and others (see above, pp. 44 _sqq._)

[185]

His chief argument to prove the first position laid down by him
depended on a double and ambiguous use of the word _is_; "That which is
not, _is_ the non-existent: the word _is_ must, therefore, be
applicable to it as truly as when we say That which is, _is_;
therefore, being is predicable of that which is not." So conversely he
proved not-being to be predicable of that which is. And in like manner
he made away with any possible assertions as to the finite or infinite,
the eternal or created, nature of that which is. Logi