himself, the 'least jealous of mankind.'

Nor is there anything in the sentiments of Protagoras which impairs this
pleasing impression of the grave and weighty old man. His real defect is
that he is inferior to Socrates in dialectics. The opposition between him
and Socrates is not the opposition of good and bad, true and false, but of
the old art of rhetoric and the new science of interrogation and argument;
also of the irony of Socrates and the self-assertion of the Sophists.
There is quite as much truth on the side of Protagoras as of Socrates; but
the truth of Protagoras is based on common sense and common maxims of
morality, while that of Socrates is paradoxical or transcendental, and
though full of meaning and insight, hardly intelligible to the rest of
mankind. Here as elsewhere is the usual contrast between the Sophists
representing average public opinion and Socrates seeking for increased
clearness and unity of ideas. But to a great extent Protagoras has the
best of the argument and represents the better mind of man.

For example: (1) one of the noblest statements to be found in antiquity
about the preventive nature of punishment is put into his mouth; (2) he is
clearly right also in maintaining that virtue can be taught (which Socrates
himself, at the end of the Dialogue, is disposed to concede); and also (3)
in his explanation of the phenomenon that good fathers have bad sons; (4)
he is right also in observing that the virtues are not like the arts, gifts
or attainments of special individuals, but the common property of all:
this, which in all ages has been the strength and weakness of ethics and
politics, is deeply seated in human nature; (5) there is a sort of half-
truth in the notion that all civilized men are teachers of virtue; and more
than a half-truth (6) in ascribing to man, who in his outward conditions is
more helpless than the other animals, the power of self-improvement; (7)
the religious allegory should be noticed, in which the arts are said to be