inadequate to the solution of the problem. This
scrutiny consisted in searching for the ground of "contradiction"[571]
with regard to each opinion founded on sensation, and showing that
opposite views were equally tenable. It inquired on what ground these
opinions were maintained, and what consequences flowed therefrom, and it
showed that the grounds upon which "opinion" was founded, and the
conclusions which were drawn from it, were contradictory, and
consequently untrue.[572] "They," the Dialecticians, "examined the
opinions of men as if they were error; and bringing them together by a
reasoning process to the same point, they placed them by the side of
each other: and by so placing, they showed that _the opinions are at one
and the same time contrary to themselves, about the same things, with
reference to the same circumstances, and according to the same
premises_."[573] And inasmuch as the same attribute can not, at the same
time, be affirmed and denied of the same subject,[574] therefore a thing
can not be at once "changeable" and "unchangeable," "movable" and
"immovable," "generated" and "eternal."[575] The objects of sense,
however generalized and classified, can only give the contingent, the
relative, and the finite; therefore the permanent ground and sufficient
reason of all phenomenal existence can not be found in opinions and
judgments founded upon sensation.

[Footnote 571: "The Dialectitian is one who syllogistically infers the
contradictions implied in popular opinions."--Aristotle, "Sophist," Secs.
1, 2.]

[Footnote 572: "Republic," bk. vi. ch. xiii.]

[Footnote 573: "Sophist," Sec. 33; "Republic," bk. iv. ch. xii.]

[Footnote 574: See the "Phaedo," Sec. 119, and "Republic," bk. iv. ch.
xiii., where the Law of Non-contradiction is announced.]

[Footnote 575 "Parmenides," Sec. 3.]

The dialectic process thus consisted almost entirely of
_refutation_,[576] or what both he and Aristotle denominated _elenchus_
(elenchos)--a process of reasoning by which the contradictory of a given
proposition is inferred. "When refutation had done its utmost, and all
the points of difficulty and objection had been fully brought out, the
dialectic method had accomplished its purpose; and the affirmation which
remained, after this discussion, might be regarded as setting forth the
truth of the question under consideration;"[577] or in other words,
_when a system of error is destroyed by refutation, the contradictory
op