Te philosophers of Greece and the sophers of China are all more or leas even to those whose reading on such subjects is superficial. Everybody of ordinary education knows something, at any rate, of Socrates, Plate, and Aristotle; and most people, at all China, have a rough acquain ance with the names of Confucius, Monoius, and Ino Tsze, But while the great tercliors who have founded schools of thought have now a world"wide fame, the empirics who opposed them in thoit day have fallen into something very much like oblivion, And yet the Sophists did good service, Superficial prattlers though they wore, confessedly arguing for the more love of argu-mont, and playing with logic much as fa clever conjurer plays with peas and thimbles, it cnunot be denied that they encouraged the exercise of independent thought, and afforded considerable as. sistance in bringing the art of ratiocin tion to perfection, Their very sophisms afforded material for trae philosophers to work upon, and the exposure of their clover fallacies was a favourite and by no meansunproductive pastime even among those whose object was more to discover truth than to juggle successfully with words, A study of Plato's Dislogues la all that is necessary to prove the justice of this assertion, for it is to Sophists that we owe some of the finest exhibitions of dialectical skill that the Greek philosophers have bequeathed to Now just as there were Sophis during the golden age of philosophy in Greece, s0 wore there Sophists, or TAGHM, during the golden age of philosophy in China, And, as we shall prove, the two classes of men bore a very striking family resemblance to nek other, even to the point of advancing almost the same theories and attempting to prove the same paradoxes. Most of our readers are doubt familiar with the famous fallacies which the Greek Sophists loved to fabricate. "That is my dog. That dog is a father, Thore~ fore, that dog is my father." "If, when you speak the truth, you say you lie, you lio; but you say you lie when you speak the trath; therefore in spenking.the truth you lie." "Bread is better than nothing. Nothing is better than Elysium, Therefore, brand is better than Elysium." Such were the wordsquibbles in the production of which the sophistical quacks of Greece Gelighted, about the time of Socrates and when we turn to the corresponding period in China we find very much the some phenomenon existing here, There Huei Shih, who is attacked in a spit and lively style by Chuang Tsze, himself regarded as a Sophist by the orthodox followers of Confucius, "The works of Huei Shih," say:
numerous and exten published a great collection of books, Bat his doctrines are unpractical and contradictory, and his words do not bit the mark; he says just what comes upper. i most, without regard to accuracy, affirm. ing that that which is unsurpassably great, and ontsidewhich there is nothing, is the Great Unit; and that that which ig infinitesimally small, and inside which there is nothing, is the Atom, He says that the whole Universe muy be filled with matter even though there be no foundation for anything to rest upon 3 that Heaven is no higher than the Barth; that a mountain is as level as bat sunset is the same as the in that one is the result of the other; that life comes from death, and death from life; that general re-different from resemblance that this detailed resemb-Innce should therefore be called a difference, while the final resemblances and differences in the Universe only amount to saying that the differences than the resemblances." Huei is said to have looked upon all this asa very fine performance, about which all his fellow Sophists delighted to talk and argue, These men would undertake to prove a variety of absurd dities,—for instance, that there is no hent in fire; that the eye does not see that a wheel does not triturate the ground; that when you have arrived at the farthest extreme there is not! to provant your going farther a that there is hair upon an egg; that if the half of a stick a foot long be cut off every day, it will take ten thousand generations till there is nothing left, 80 much foolish, wordy babble, saying that the Sophists would argue with each other in a circle ceaselessly, puzzling people's minds to no purpose and ply bent on showing off their own cleverness in disputation. His criti on the arab-sophist Huei Shih is dignified and tothe point. He talks away about everything, without refleoti the more he talks the farther be from finishing. If be were to confine his attention to one thing only, it would be well enough; then he might be said, by his additional reverence for Truth, to by most attained to it, But the man is incapable of thus setting his mind at rest; he diffuses his mental powers abroad over everything without getting any satisfaction; lo just acquires a reputation for controversial skill and nothing more, Alas, for the talents of Huei Shit! He employs them lavishly enough, yet reaps no advantage; he prias into everything, but never thinks of penetrating to the root of anything lo is like a body which runs after its own shadow in hopes to catch it and stop it." It is difficult to realise there used actually to be men i this stolid, conservative country, this stronghold of platitudinarian orthodoxy, to whom such a description was aps plicable, Yet here is the proof of i and not only were their methods anne log ous to those of the Greek Sophista, but the theories they advanced were very similar too, The arguments of the Sophist Gorgias on the mysteries of ex"
ind one very curiously of the into the month of the God of Phe which Chuang Tete pate Northern Sea, The aim of Gorgias to prove that nothing existe; that if anything does exist, it cannot be an object of knowledge} and that if even anything exists and can be known cannot be imparted to others, IE anys thing is, says Gorgias, as quoted by Sextus Empirions, must be either or non-being, or even at one and me time both being and nonsbein, All these oases are impossible; for a non-being cannot be, because it is the opposite of being; and therefore, if the latter is, the former cannot be; because if it were, it must be at the same being and non-being, Chuang North-Sea God it larly paradoxical and abstruse. "What is enid to exist,"" 0 spoken of because it ud, if so, there is noti in the Univer Similarly, what is spoken of because it docs not exist; and 0, Where is nothing in the which is not non-existent." lows close upon the enuncii theory which is not without ite bearing upon both speculative and practical mathematics, The argument is, briefly, as follows, "Subtlety is the occult part of the minute, Boa thing subtle or gross, it seems to me that it must have a form, A formless or un sub. stantial thing cannot be distinguished gross or subtle, discriminate as minutely og you will. What onn be spoken of, is the gross or palpable part of an entity; what oan be imagined only, ite subtle part, or essence; but I take it that what is neither gross nor subtle can neither be talked of nor imagined." A few months ago there died, at Peking, thogrentest Chinese mathematician of the present century, His name w Li Biante and he was Professor But he differed from the mathematicians of Europe in this respect, that he denied the non-existence of a point.
A point, said Professor Li, ie an infvitesimally small cube; and in saying 80 he only reproduced the theories put into the mouth of the sophistical God of the Northern Sea, two thousand years ago, by Obuang Tezo,
'THE FRENCH-MAIG PAPERS, Postuvuovs autobiography is a growing fashion, and one of exceeding lly of letters. Within the last few years pecially when the work consists princi-we have had the admirable correspondence of Lord Macaulay with Macvey Napier and others, the cheer{Ul opiatics of Miss Mitford, mevenssnineoateressacetiset tee asta TELS URA Seat
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.