ITS FOUNDATION. 41 



Again 3 , in a question concerning mechanical 

 action, he says, "When a man moves a stone by 

 pushing it with a stick, we say both that the man 

 moves the stone, and that the stick moves the stone, 

 but the latter more properly." 



Again, we find the Greek philosophers applying 

 themselves to extract their dogmas from the most 

 general and abstract notions which they could detect; 

 for example, from the conception of the Universe 

 as One or as Many things. They tried to determine 

 how far we may, or must, combine with these con- 

 ceptions that of a whole, of parts, of number, of 

 limits, of place, of beginning or end, of full or void, 

 of rest or motion, of cause and effect, and the like. 

 The analysis of such conceptions with such a view, 

 occupies, for instance, almost the whole of Aristo- 

 tle's Treatise on the Heavens. 



The Dialogue of Plato, which is entitled Par^ 

 menides, appears at first as if its object were to show 

 the futility of this method of philosophizing; for 

 the philosopher whose name it bears, is represented 

 as arguing with an Athenian named Aristotle, (c) 

 and, by a process of metaphysical analysis, reduc- 

 ing him at least to this conclusion, "that whether 

 One exist, or do not exist, it follows that both it 

 and other things, with reference to themselves and 

 to each other, all and in all respects, both are and 

 are not, both appear and appear not." Yet the 

 method of Plato, so far as concerns truth of that 



3 Phvsic. Ausc. viii. 5. 



