That such a method is not induction in the general acceptation 

 of the word is evident. Mill, an ardent champion of induction, 

 defines it as the "operation of the mind by which we infer that 

 what we know to be true in a particular case or cases will be true 

 in all cases which resemble the former in certain assignable res- 

 pects." 1 Now Socrates makes no attempt to reach a universal by 

 summing up a number of particulars; his method is not an inductio 

 per enumerationem simplicem, the meaning which the Scholastics, 

 up to the time of Bacon, gave the word induction; 2 neither does he 

 advance from particulars to a general truth by the method later 

 advocates of induction have emphasized, except in this sense, a 

 sense which is quite otherwise than that implied in modern induc- 

 tion, he analyses out from the various examples before him the 

 common characteristics and having done so he is able to formulate 

 a definition. In this same way, by analysis or abstraction, all 

 definitions which are more than merely verbal are formed. That is, 

 his definition is an analytic product rather than an enumerated one. 

 Modern science makes constant use of just this method, and those 

 sciences, which employ classification, such as anthropology, biology, 

 chemistry, etc., are virtually dependent for their progress upon just 

 such a method. It was this that led Windelband in his History of 

 Philosophy, p. 95, to say, "it will remain a noteworthy fact for all 

 time, that a man, who so narrowed for himself the intellectual 

 horizon of scientific research as did Socrates, should yet determine 

 within this the essential nature of science itself, in a manner so 

 clear and authoritative for all the future." 



The method of Socrates then may be described as analytic rather 

 than inductive. It is his great contribution to the history of 

 thought. The content within which this method was used by 

 Socrates was, in the main, the moral realm. As Cicero said, 

 "Socrates called philosophy down from the heavens to earth and 

 introduced it into the cities and houses of men, compelling them to 

 inquire concerning[life and morals and things good and evil/_' 3 



The two most Brilliant followers of Socrates, viz., Plato, 427- 

 347 B.C., and Aristotle, 384-322 B.C., widened the scope of their 

 investigations. For them conduct was but one question, though 



1 System of Logic, Bk. Ill, Ch. 2. 



2 For the development of the doctrine of induction, cf. Welton, Manual of 

 Logic. Vol. II Ch. 2. 



1 Acad. post, I, 4, 15. 



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