Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/477

SUBJECTS FIT FOR DIALECTICS. 455 in perpetual and conscious association with the evidences, affirma- tive and negative, by the joint consideration of which their truth is established ; nor can this object be attained by any other means than by ever-renovated discussion, instituted from new and dis- tinct points of view, and with free play to that negative arm which is indispensable as stimulus not less than as control. To ask for nothing but results, to decline the labor of verification, to be satisfied with a ready-made stock of established positive argu- ments as proof, and to decry the doubter or negative reasoner, who starts new difficulties, as a common enemy, this is a proceed- ing sufficiently common, in ancient as well as in modern times. But it is, nevertheless, an abnegation of the dignity, and even of the functions, of speculative philosophy. It is the direct reverse of the method both of SokratSs and Plato, who, as inquirers, felt that, for the great subjects which they treated, multiplied threads of reasoning, coupled with the constant presence of the cross- examining elenchus, were indispensable. Nor is it less at vari- ance with the views of Aristotle, though a man very different from either of them, who goes round his subject on all sides, states and considers all its difficulties, and insists emphatically on the necessity of having all these difficulties brought out in full force, as the incitement and guide to positive philosophy, as well as the test of its sufficiency. 1 Bacon ia quite right in effacing the distinction between the two lists of persons whom he compares ; and in saying that the latter were just a* much sophists as the former, in the sense which he here gives to the word as well as in every other legitimate sense. But he is not justified in im- puting to either of them this many-sided argumentation as a fault, looking to the subjects upon which they brought it to bear. His remark has appli- cation to the simpler physical sciences, but none to the moral. It had great pertinence and value, at the time when he brought it forward, and with reference to the important reforms which he was seeking to accom- plish in physical science. In so far as Plato, Aristotle, or the other Greek philosophers, apply their deductive method to physical subjects, they come justly under Bacon's censure. But here again, the fault consisted less it. disputing too much, than in too hastily admitting false or inaccurate axioms without dispute. 1 Aristotel. Mctaphysic. iii, 1, 2-5, p. 995, a. The indispensable necessity, to a philosopher, of having before him nlJ the difficulties and doubts of the problem which he tries to solve, and of