A HISTORY OF SCIENCE 



metaphysics, Socrates marks an epoch, but for the 

 historian of science he is a much less consequential 

 figure. 



Similarly regarding Plato, the aristocratic Athenian 

 who sat at the feet of Socrates, and through whose 

 writings the teachings of the master found widest cur- 

 rency. Some students of philosophy find in Plato 

 "the greatest thinker and writer of all time." * The 

 student of science must recognize in him a thinker 

 whose point of view was essentially non-scientific ; one 

 who tended always to reason from the general to the 

 particular rather than from the particular to the gen- 

 eral. Plato's writings covered almost the entire field 

 of thought, and his ideas were presented with such 

 literary charm that successive generations of readers 

 turned to them with unflagging interest, and gave 

 them wide currency through copies that finally pre- 

 served them to our own time. Thus we are not 

 obliged in his case, as we are in the case of every 

 other Greek philosopher, to estimate his teachings 

 largely from hearsay evidence. Plato himself speaks 

 to us directly. It is true, the literary form which he 

 always adopted, namely, the dialogue, does not give 

 quite the same certainty as to when he is expressing 

 his own opinions that a more direct narrative would 

 have given ; yet, in the main, there is little doubt as to 

 the tenor of his own opinions except, indeed, such 

 doubt as always attaches to the philosophical reason- 

 ing of the abstract thinker. 



What is chiefly significant from our present stand- 

 point is that the great ethical teacher had no sig- 

 nificant message to give the world regarding the 



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