Page:Dissertations and Discussions, Vol. 4 (1867).djvu/332

 This could only be done eithetually by way of oral discussion; pressing the respondent by questions, to which he was generally unable to make replies that were not in contradiction either to admitted fact, or to his own original hypothesis. This cross-examination is the Sokratic Elcnchus; which, wielded by a master such as Sokrates was, and as we can ourselves appreciate in Pluto, no mere appearance of knowledge without the reality was able to resist. Its pressure was certain, in an honest-mind, to dissipate the false opinion of knowledge, and make the confuted respondent sensible of his own ignorance, while it at once helped and stimulated him to the mental effort by which alone that ignorance could be exehanged for knowledge. Dialccties, thus understood, is one branch of an art Which is a main portion of the Art of Living—that of not believing except on sufiicient evidence; its function being that of compelling a man to put his belief into precise terms, and take a defensiblc position against all the objections that can be made to it. The other, or positive arm of Plato's dialectics, of which he and Sokrates may be regarded as the originators, is the direct search for the common feature of things that are classed together, or, in other words, for the meaning of the class—name. It comprehends the logical processes of Definition and Division or Classification ; the theory and systematic employment of which were a new thing in Plato”s day : indeed Aristotle says that the former of the Operations was first introduced by Sokrates. They are indissolubly connected, Division being, as Plato inculcates, the only road to Definition. To find what a thing is, it is necessary to set out from Being in general, or from some large and known Kind which