PHILOSOPHY AND THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHERS. 15 consequences lead to its own negation. Glaucon and Adeimantus have advanced farther ; they have absorbed a subtler rationalism than Thrasymachus, but have recog- nised its inadequacy, and so they are fitted to stimulate and to follow the Platonic Socrates in his constructive idealism. This dialectic method is formulated in very simple terms by Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics VII. 1, 5, 1145, b 2, where he proposes in discussing the subject of dicpaa-ia to follow his customary plan of stating current opinions (TO, <j)aiv6fjLeva, ra eyoneva), going through the objections which may be made to them (SiaTroprja-avTas), and so arriving at a solution (v<ris), which if possible shall recognise the element of truth in all, or at least in the most important of these opinions. Here we have the germ of the Scholastic method of quaestio, objecta, conclusio. But with Aristotle it has not yet stiffened into a formal and external method ; and his solutions are not as cut and dried as those of theologians were expected to be. Many illustrations of this method of d-TTopiai may be found in the Aristotelian writings, e.g., in the Ethics in the discussion of pleasure both in book vii. and in book x. One very conspicuous example on a large scale is supplied by the Politics. The whole of the second book is occupied with a criticism of Plato and other political theorists, and also of actual constitutions which had been held up as ideals. In the Metaphysics we have the same method applied to "First Philosophy" what we call "metaphysics". Aris- totle thinks it necessary to go through the opinions of his predecessors. As he was the first to write (or inspire) a constitutional history, 1 so he was the first to write a history of philosophy, and he writes it as an integral and necessary part of his own metaphysical system. Schwegler indeed (in a note on Met. I. c. 3) holds that " the modern philosophical view [he means, of course, the Hegelian view] of the history of philosophy is entirely alien to Aristotle. He sees in it not a regular process of development going on with logical neces- sity, but regards it only from the paedagogic side, as a school 1 The recently discovered 'AdqpacW iroXtreia, which if not written by Aristotle must have been written for his use, is not merely a description of the Athenian constitution at some particular period, but an account of its successive forms. It is the first constitutional history ever written. The other 157 notTiat were probably less elaborate documents. But this extensive survey of the actual political institutions of mankind, barbarian as well as Greek, shows how Aristotle like Hegel prepared himself for philosophy by historical study.
