=The Sages.=--For some centuries there had been, especially among the
Greeks of Asia, men who observed and reflected on things. They were
called by a name which signifies at once wise men and scholars. They
busied themselves with physics, astronomy, natural history, for as yet
science was not separated from philosophy. Such were in the seventh
century the celebrated Seven Sages of Greece.
=The Sophists.=--About the time of Pericles there came to Athens men
who professed to teach wisdom. They gathered many pupils and charged
fees for their lessons. Ordinarily they attacked the religion,
customs, and institutions of Greek cities, showing that they were not
founded on reason. They concluded that men could not know anything
with certainty (which was quite true for their time), that men can
know nothing at all, and that nothing is true or false: "Nothing
exists," said one of them, "and if it did exist, we could not know
it." These professors of scepticism were called sophists. Some of them
were at the same time orators.
=Socrates and the Philosophers.=--Socrates, an old man of Athens,
undertook to combat the sophists.
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