[…] I wil not be afraid to saie vnto a Pope or Cardinall in this plight, be of good comfort, we haue to doe with a mercifull God; rather to make the best of a little which we hold well, and not with a captious sophister, which gathereth the worst out of everie thing, wherein wee erre.

1783, David Hume (ascribed), Essays on Suicide, and the Immortality of the Soul, London: M. Smith, Letter 114, p. 74,
The same sophisters make it a question whether life can ever be an evil? but when we consider the multitude of errors, torments, and vices, with which it abounds, one would rather be inclined to doubt whether it can ever be a blessing.

Burke said the age of the economist was also the age of the sophister.

In the older American colleges, the junior and senior classes were originally called Junior Sophisters and Senior Sophisters. The term is also used at Oxford and Dublin.

Sophister

Meaning

Noun