includes the thing sought—to dismember the kind into its component parts, and these into others, each division being, if possible, only into the members (an anticipation of Ramus and Bentham) , marking at cach stage the distinctive feature which differentiates one member from the other. By the time we have divided down to the thing of Which we are in quest, we have remarked its points of agreement with all the things to which it is allied, and the points that constitute its differences from them; and are thus enabled to produce a definition of it, which is a compendium of its whole nature. This mode of arriving at a definition is elaborately exemplified, first on an insignilicant subject, then on a great and difficult one, in the Sophistes and Politikes; two of the most important of the Platonic dialogues, because in both of them the conception of this part of the process of philosophizing is purely Baconian, unencumbered by the ontologieal theory which Plate in other writings superinduces on his pure logic.[1] Without this theory, however, a very insufiicient conception would be formed of the Platonic philosophy.. The bond of union among the particulars comprised in a class, as understood by Plato, is not a mental Concept, framed by abstraction, and having no existence outside the mind, but a Form or Idea, existing by itself, belonging to another world than ours — with which Form or Idea, concrete objects have a communion or participation of nature, and in the likeness of which (though a very imperfect likeness) they have been made. WVhen this mode of conceiving
- ↑ The transition in Plato's mind from the simple to the transcendental doctrine is represented in a tolerably intelligible manner in his Seventh Epistle, of which an abstract is given by Mr. Grote, vol. i. p. 223, et seq.
