Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 9.djvu/544

 530 CRITICAL NOTICES : adequate form for the mediate truths of science. But it remains as true for him as it was for Plato that the dialectic method is the only way of arriving at immediate propositions, propositions which can have no middle term between their subject and their predicate, and we have seen that it is from such propositions that all science must start " ( 24). This passage is perhaps liable to be misunder- stood. " Dialectic " seems to be used in a limited sense as equi- valent to Plato's technical sense of the word and to a part only of dialectic in the Aristotelian sense. Though the discovery of im- mediate propositions is the special function of Dialectic (or more strictly is /u.aXrTa o'iKfiov 1-175 SiaAeKTiio/s, Topics, 101 b, 2) it is not its only function. A dialectic proof may be a o-i)A.Xoyr/xos oiaAe/m- KOS, and a syllogism must have a middle term. The next section (25) is perhaps the most valuable in the general introduction. It contains a most interesting account of the method of dialectic, as used in Ethics for bhe determination of the ap-^-q of the science. Of special importance is the point that ju.cTa/3i/3<ieu' (c/. /tcTa./JaiWii') is the technical term for the process of developing an evSo^ov by means of criticism. The account of the technical term TpoySA^/xa is hardly satisfactory. "We begin by 'taking' (afn/3riv(tv) premisses from the beliefs of the many and the wise to serve as premisses (ei'8ooi irpoTao-eis). But our attitude towards these beliefs is by no means uncritical. ... As a general rule, we find that they are contradictory, and when we find such a contra- diction between received beliefs, we have what is called an awopia (literally, ' no thoroughfare ').... The technical name for a pair of contradictory efi>Soa is Trp6/3.rj/j.a and the solution of it is called the Aro-is." Also note page xliii. "A wpo/SAij/xa (-n-po/SaAAw) only differs from a TrpoVao-is (Trporeivut) in form (TO! TpoTTia), C/. Top., 101 b, 29." This tends to suggest that a Trpd/SAiy/xa is a pair of contradic- tory premisses, and seems to lose sight of the fact that a irpd/8Ar;/xa is essentially a conclusion (not as such of course but before it has been proved). A 7rpo/8A.7;/xa is of the rpoTros, TroTcpov TO ot rot? TroAAms f/ fKartpoi avrol eavrois). On the Other hand a irp6racn<; is of the form apd ye TO coov TTCOV SITTOW 6pto~/AOS eo"Ttv av@p<i)7rov ; and is on the whole cVSo^os and not "problematical". Of course, in general, there is difference of opinion with respect to SP, and in this case, as Mr. Burnet shows, the object of dialectic is, by means of criticism, to qualify the opposed views in such a way as to bring them into harmony, the ultimate assumption of the method being that neither the mass of mankind nor the great thinkers are likely to be altogether wrong. We may now turn to the second question with respect to method, the question as to the procedure of the science after its dpx 7 ? h^ 8 been determined (S 22, 26). Being a TrpaKTtio) ibno-rq/xj?, Ethics is