236 JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
be wondered at that, amid such intense and varied toil, and dying 
at the age of sixty-three, he should have found neither time nor 
strength to raise the Inductive method to a perfected scientific form. 
It was enough, amidst his other achievements, to survey in rough 
outline the highway to scientific knowledge. We need not detract 
from his just renown when, as is proper, we recognise the sub- 
sequent services of men who caught his truth-loving spirit, and 
completed the task he so bravely began. 
In speaking of methods, I have also alluded to our derivation of 
Formal Logic from our Greek predecessors. I have already quoted 
words of Aristotle to the effect, that prior to his own labours, Logic, 
as a formal science, had no existence. Reference has sometimes 
been made to the logical puzzles of Zeno, the Eleatic, as also 
to the methodical aspect of Plato’s Dialectic, in proof of the 
pre-Aristotelian origin of Logic.* This, however, is a mistake, 
arising from a confusion of a use of the syllogistic ‘style of 
reasoning with the formal science of reasoning. Aristotle himself 
expresses his utter dissatisfaction with the four kinds of argu- 
mentation employed by the Sophists (didactic, dialectic, peirastic, 
eristic), and he considers Plato’s desultory habit as a weakness. 
Sir W. Hamilton is a great authority, and, in calling into question 
his statements, one has to believe that in the vastness of his range 
over the history of philosophy he now and then allowed fallible 
acts of memory to do duty for quotations of actual language. It 
is only in this way that we can account for his assertion that 
Plato first enunciated the principle of Contradiction. The refer- 
ences he makes to the Phedo, p. 103; Sophistes, p. 252; Rep., iv. 
p. 486; vil. 525, only show that in practice Plato availed himself 
of this principle—not that he gave a formal scientific statement 
and defence of it, as a law of thought, ever after to be recognised, 
as did Aristotle in the third book of the Metaphysics. Those 
familiar with Logic as a science know well that in its fundamental 
principles and substantial forms it is, at the present day, what 
Aristotle made it. As might be expected, in the progress of the 
human mind, improvements, by way of addition and removal, 
have been made; though, in the case of some so-called improve- 
ments, it is obvious that they had not escaped the keen eye of the 
great mental analyst; as, for instance, it will be seen by the 
* Whately’s “ Logic,” pp. 2-6. Hamilton’s “ Discussions,” pp. 140-1. 
