And this was the grand aim of his _Dialectic_--to elicit, to bring to
light the truths which are already in the mind--"a maieusis" a kind of
intellectual midwifery[561]--a delivering of the mind of the ideas with
which it was pregnant.

[Footnote 560: As in the "Phaedo," Secs. 48-57; "Phaedrus," Secs. 52-64;
"Republic," bk. x.]

[Footnote 561: "Theaetetus," Secs. 17-20.]

It is thus, at first sight, obvious that it was a higher and more
comprehensive science than the art of deduction. For it was directed to
the discovery and establishment of First Principles. Its sole object was
the discovery of truth. His dialectic was an _analytical_ and _inductive
method_. "In Dialectic Science," says _Alcinous_, "there is a dividing
and a defining, and an analyzing, and, moreover, that which is inductive
and syllogistic."[562] Even _Bacon_, who is usually styled "the Father
of the Inductive method," and who, too often, speaks disparagingly of
Plato, is constrained to admit that he followed the inductive method.
"An induction such as will be of advantage for the invention and
demonstration of Arts and Sciences must distinguish the essential nature
of things (naturam) by proper rejections and exclusions, and then after
as many of these negatives as are sufficient, by comprising, above all
(super), the positives. Up to this time this had not been done, nor even
attempted, _except by Plato alone, who, in order to attain his
definitions and ideas, has used, to a certain extent, the method of
Induction_."[563]

[Footnote 562: "Introduction to the Doctrines of Plato," vol. vi. p.
249. "The Platonic Method was the method of induction."--Cousin's
"History of Philosophy," vol. i. p. 307.]

[Footnote 563: "Novum Organum," vol. i. p. 105.]

The process of investigation adopted by Plato thus corresponds with the
inductive method of modern times, with this simple difference, that
Bacon conducted science into the world of _matter_, whilst Plato
directed it to the world of _mind_. The dialectic of Plato aimed at the
discovery of the "laws of thought;" the modern inductive philosophy aims
at the discovery of the "laws of nature." The latter concerns itself
chiefly with the inquiry after the "causes" of material phenomena; the
former concerned itself with the inquiry after the "first principles" of
all knowledge and of all existence. Both processes are, therefore,
carried on by _interrogation_. The analysis which seeks for a law of
nature pro