Note 17 — AUGUST.

"Plato," says Grote, "appreciated dialogue, not only as the road to a conclusion, but for the mental discipline and suggestive influences of the tentative and verifying process. It was his purpose to create in his hearers a disposition to prosecute philosophical researches of their own, and at the same time to strengthen their ability of doing this with effect. This remark is especially confirmed in the two dialogues, the Sophisticus and Politicus, wherein he defends himself against reproaches seemingly made at the time. To what does all this tend? Why do you stray so widely from your professed topic? Could you not have reached the point by a shorter road? He replies by distinctly proclaiming—that the process, with its improving influence on the mind, stands first in his thoughts, the direct conclusion of the inquiry only second; that the special topic which he discusses, though in itself important, is nevertheless chosen primarily with a view to its effect in communicating general method and dialectical aptitude, just as a schoolmaster, when he gives out to his pupils a word to be spelt, looks mainly, not to the exactness in spelling the particular word, but to their command of good spelling generally. To form inquisitive testing minds, fond of philosophical debate as a pursuit, and looking at opinions on the negative as on the positive side, is the first object of most of Plato's dialogues: to teach positive truth, is only a secondary object."—Grote's Plato, Vol. II, p. 399.