History of Philosophy. 65 



philosophy, arid pointed out the sources from which true wisdom was 

 to be derived, he next set ahout instructing his disciples in the course 

 they were to pursue in order to obtain the earliest and mostabundan* 

 harvest from the seed which he had shown contained the ger*"" * 

 true knowledge. His mode ofcomrnunicating information w^ not how- 

 ever uniform ; but there is one distinguishing characte^ 1 ] 6 m **\ s " 1S ~ 

 courses, namely, that he always took upon himself * Ae ofllce of m tfr- 

 rogator, feigning in the first instance ignoran^ * the subject which 

 he wished and intended to explain. In th*> course of these interroga- 

 tions, by the help of leading questions, Ae contrived to keep his inter- 

 locutor on the road which would u^mately lead him to truth, and 

 unravelled insensibly the clue to ^e labyrinth of difficulties through 

 which his path lay. He endeavoured to elicit the knowledge he 

 meant to impart from the reason and intelligence of the pupil rather 

 than at once communicat* the requisite information, so as to encourage 

 the practice of meditp^on rather than of memory, to induce them 

 to rely on their *wn powers of thought rather than lean else- 

 where for support. Thus he instructed his pupils to cultivate their 

 reflective families, and taught them how to build up systems for 

 themselvf* rather than to trust to any axioms of morality or wisdom, 

 which Ae might supply to their memories for their intellectual im- 

 pro* ement 



To propose questions of such a nature, and in such an order as to 

 give rise to that train of reasoning which would produce the answers 

 he desired, was a problem, the solution of which required no little in- 

 genuity ; and he appears to have availed himself of three different 

 modes of arranging his queries for this purpose. 



First. A method of analysis very similar to that employed in 

 geometry ; namely, the assumption of the truth of an hypothesis as a 

 starting point, and thence, by regular steps of reasoning, deducing a 

 manifest truth or absurdity (as the case may require) for the verifica- 

 tion of the original assertion, or proceeding from a well-known and 

 generally received axiom as a basis, by the proper application of 

 which you prove the stability of the superstructure you have raised. 



Secondly. The second mode is that generally recognised as the 

 method of induction, consisting in the separation of abstract ideas or 

 facts from the concrete groups in which they are found united, and 

 arranging them in classes under those heads of general truth or law 

 to which they may be attached as illustrations or examples. This 

 appears to have been a favourite method with Socrates, as it is per- 

 haps more frequently employed than any other in his discourses. 



Thirdly. The third method employed is not unlike a chemical ana- 

 lysis; the process followed being that of taking to pieces a complex 

 idea and examining the weight and value of each individual element 

 so as to acquire accurate notions of the nature of the compound. 



We shall, perhaps, better illustrate our division by giving one ex- 

 ample of each mode of reasoning. The first, or geometrical analysis, 

 is avowedly employed in the Menon of Plato, in which the philoso- 

 pher himself announces his intention of proceeding after the manner 

 of geometers. The point under discussion is, whether virtue can be 

 taught ; which question he considers amenable to the laws of mathe- 



JAN. 1837. F 



