A History of Greek Philosophy / THE SOPHISTS / GORGIAS

Page 7

It represented the claim of a new generation to have no dogma or assumption thrust on it by mere force, physical or moral. “I too am a man,” it said; “I have rights; my reason must be convinced.” This is the fundamental thought at the root of most revolutions and reformations and revivals, and the thought is therefore a necessary and a just one.

Unfortunately it seems to be an inevitable condition of human affairs that nothing new, however necessary or good can come into being out of the old, without much sorrow and many a birth-pang. The extravagant, the impetuous, the narrow-minded on both sides seize on their points of difference, raise them into battle-cries, and make what might be a peaceful regeneration a horrid battlefield of contending hates. The Christ when He comes brings not peace into the world, but a sword. And men of evil passions and selfish ambitions are quick on both sides to make the struggle of old and new ideals a handle for their own indulgence or their own advancement; the Pharisees and the Judases between them make the Advent in some of its aspects a sorry spectacle.

A reconciler was wanted who should wed what was true in the new doctrine of individualism with what was valuable in the old doctrine of universal and necessary truth; who should be able to say, “Yes, I acknowledge that your individual view of things must be reckoned with, and mine, and everybody else’s; and for that very reason do I argue for a universal and necessary truth, because the very truth for you as an individual is just this universal.” The union and identification of the Individual and Universal,—this paradox of philosophy is the doctrine of Socrates. 

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