Note (return) — Chapter XI

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