Note 92 — Chapter VIII · PLATONIC COMPOSITIONS GENERALLY.
Reading edition
A passage in one of the speeches composed by Lysias, addressed by a plaintiff in court to the Dikasts, shows how debate and free antithesis of opposite opinions were accounted as essential to the process τοῦ φιλοσοφεῖν — καὶ ἐγὼ μὲν ᾤμην φιλοσοφοῦντας αὐτοὺς περὶ τοῦ πράγματος ἀντιλέγειν τὸν ἐναντίον λόγον· οἱ δ’ ἄρα οὐκ ἀντέλεγον, ἀλλ’ ἀντέπραττον. (Lysias, Or. viii. Κακολογιῶν s. 11, p. 273; compare Plat. Apolog. p. 28 E.)
Bacon describes his own intellectual cast of mind, in terms which illustrate the Platonic διάλογοι ζητητικοί, — the character of the searcher, doubter, and tester, as contrasted with that of the confident affirmer and expositor:—“Me ipsum autem ad veritatis contemplationes quam ad alia magis fabrefactum deprehendi, ut qui mentem et ad rerum similitudinem (quod maximum est) agnoscendum satis mobilem, et ad differentiarum subtilitates observandas satis fixam et intentam haberem — qui et quærendi desiderium, et dubitandi patientiam, et meditandi voluptatem, et asserendi cunctationem, et resipiscendi facilitatem, et disponendi sollicitudinem tenerem — quique nec novitatem affectarem, nec antiquitatem admirarer, et omnem imposturam odissem. Quare naturam meam cum veritate quandam familiaritatem et cognationem habere judicavi.” (Impetus Philosophici, De Interpretatione Naturæ Proœmium.)
Σωκρατικῶς εἰς ἑκάτερον is the phrase of Cicero, ad Atticum ii. 3.