ecame practically "lawless" and antinomian, but they did arrive at
the settled opinion that right and wrong, truth and error, are solely
matter of private opinion and conventional usage. Man's own fluctuating
opinion is the measure and standard of all things.[908] They who "make
the laws, make them for their own advantage."[909] There is no such
thing as Eternal Right. "That which _appears_ just and honorable to each
city is so for that city, as long as the opinion prevails."[910]

[Footnote 904: "History of Greece."]

[Footnote 905: Aristotle's "Ethics," vol. i. ch. ii.]

[Footnote 906: "His teachings will be good counsels about a man's own
affairs, how best to govern his family; and also about the affairs of
the state, how most ably to administer and speak of state
affairs."--"Protag.," Sec. 26.]

[Footnote 907: "Republic," bk. vii. ch. xvii.]

[Footnote 908: "Theaetetus," Sec. 23.]

[Footnote 909: "Gorgias," Secs. 85-89.]

[Footnote 910: "Theaetetus," Secs. 65-75.]

The age of the Sophists was a transitional period--a necessary, though,
in itself considered, an unhappy stage in the progress of the human
mind; but it opened the way for, _The Socratic, philosophic_, or
_conscious age of morals_. It has been said that "before Socrates there
was no morality in Greece, but only propriety of conduct." If by this is
meant that prior to Socrates men simply followed the maxims of "the
Theologians,"[911] and obeyed the laws of the state, without reflection
and inquiry as to the intrinsic character of the acts, and without any
analysis and exact definition, so as to attain to principles of ultimate
and absolute right, it must be accepted as true--there was no philosophy
of morals. Socrates is therefore justly regarded as "the father of moral
philosophy." Aristotle says that he confined himself chiefly to ethical
inquiries. He sought a determinate conception and an exact definition of
virtue. As Xenophon has said of him, "he never ceased asking, What is
piety? what is impiety? what is noble? what is base? what is just? what
is unjust? what is temperance? what is madness?"[912] And these
questions were not asked in the Sophistic spirit, as a dialectic
exercise, or from idle curiosity. He was a perfect contrast to the
Sophists. They had slighted Truth, he made her the mistress of his soul.
They had turned away from her, he longed for more perfect communion with
her. They had deserted her for money and renown, he was faithf