Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/447

 COMMENCEMENT OF ANALYSIS. 425 I borrow here intentionally from Xenophon in preference to Plato ; since the former, tamely describing a process which he imperfectly appreciated, identifies it so much the more completely with the real Sokrates, and is thus a better witness than Plato, whose genius not only conceived but greatly enlarged it, for didac- tic purposes of his own. In our present state of knowledge, some mental effort is required to see anything important in the words of Xenophon ; so familiar has every student been rendered with the ordinary terms and gradations of logic and classification, such as genus, definition, individual things as comprehended in a genus ; what each thing is, and to what genus it belongs, etc. But familiar as these words have now become, they denote a men- tal process, of which, in 440-430 B.C., few men besides Sokrates had any conscious perception. Of course, men conceived and described things in classes, as is implied in the very form of lan- guage, and in the habitual junction of predicates with subjects in common speech. They explained their meaning clearly and forci- bly in particular cases: they laid down maxims, argued questions, stated premises, and drew conclusions, on trials in the dikastery, or debates in the assembly : they had an abundant poetical litera- ture, which appealed to every variety of emotion : they were beginning to compile historical narrative, intermixed with reflec- tion and criticism. But though all this was done, and often admirably well done, it was wanting in that analytical conscious- ness which would have enabled any one to describe, explain, or vindicate what he was doing. The ideas of men speakers as well as hearers, the productive minds as well as the recipient multitude were associated together in groups favorable rather to emotional results, or to poetical, rhetorical narrative and de- scriptive effect, than to methodical generalization, to scientific conception, or to proof either inductive or deductive. That reflex act of attention which enables men to understand, compare, and rectify their own mental process, was only just beginning. It was a recent novelty on the part of the rhetorical teachers, to analyze (Aristot. Ethic. Nikomach. iv, 4, p. 1122, b; also Aristot Metaphys. ii, 3, p. 995, a). Even Plato thinks himself obliged to make a tort of apology for it (Thcretet. c. 102, p. 184, C). No doubt Timon used the word uKpij3oUyov<; in a sneering sense.