"good old times," saw, as clearly as Socrates, the disastrous effects
worked by the Sophists upon public morals. But the remedy he proposed
was a violent return to the "good old times." Since it was thought
which worked these ill effects, thought must be suppressed. We must go
back to simple faith. But simple faith, once destroyed by thought,
never returns either to the individual, or to the race. This can no
more happen than a man can again become a child. There is only one
remedy for the ills of thought, and that is, more thought. If thought,
in its first inroads, leads, as it always does, to scepticism and
denial, the only course is, not to suppress thought, but to found
faith upon it. This was the method of Socrates, and it is the method,
too, of all great spirits. They are not frightened of shadows. They
have faith in reason. If reason leads them into the darkness, they do
not scuttle back in fright. They advance till the light comes again.
They are false teachers who counsel us to give no heed to the
promptings of reason, if reason brings doubt into our beliefs. Thought
cannot be thus suppressed. Reason has rights upon us as rational
beings. We cannot go back. We must go on, and make our beliefs
rational. We must found them upon the concept, as Socrates did.
Socrates did not deny the principle of the Sophists that all
institutions, all ideals, all existing and established things must
justify themselves before the tribunal of reason. He accepted this
without question. He took up the challenge of thought, and won the
battle of reason in his day.

The Sophists brought to light the principle of subjectivity, the
principle that the truth must be _my_ truth, {153} and the right _my_
right. They must be the products of my own thinking, not standards
forcibly imposed upon me from without. But the mistake of the Sophists
was to imagine that the truth must be mine, merely in my capacity as a
percipient creature of sense, which means that I have a private truth
of my own. Socrates corrected this by admitting that the truth must be
my truth, but mine in my capacity as a rational being, which means,
since reason is the universal, that it is not my private truth, but
universal truth which is shared by and valid for all rational beings.
Truth is thus established as being not mere subjective appearance, but
objective reality, independent of the sensations, whims, and self-will
of the individual. The whole period of Socrates and