In dealing with his students, the same authority thus states his method of procedure: “Taking his departure from some apparently remote principle or proposition to which the respondent yielded a ready assent, Socrates would draw from it an unexpected but undeniable consequence which was plainly inconsistent with the opinion impugned. In this way he brought his interlocutor to pass judgment upon himself, and reduced him to a state of doubt or perplexity. ‘Before I ever met you,’ says Meno, in a dialogue which Plato called by his name, ‘I was told that you spent your time in doubting and leading others to doubt: and it is a fact that your witcheries and spells have brought me to that condition; you are like the torpedo; as it benumbs anyone who approaches and touches it, so do you.’”
We can readily trace the connection between the Socratic method of doubting and the same method as advocated by the professor of the theological school, for “his [Socrates’s] practice led to the Platonic revival,” and the Platonic system of education and its introduction in modern schools has been too thoroughly discussed in previous pages to need repetition here.
“Doubt” taught in modern schools
The Socratic method of teaching—the development of doubt—seems to characterize much of the teaching of to-day, if we can judge from an article which appeared in the Outlook, written by the editor, Lyman Abbott. The educational work is thus described:—
“The educational processes of our time—possibly of all time—are largely analytical and critical. They consist chiefly in analyzing the subjects brought to the student for examination, separating them into their constituent parts, considering how they have been put together, and sitting in judgment on the finished fabric or on the process by which it has been constructed.
“Thus all, or nearly all, study is analytical, critical,—a process of inquiry and investigation. The process presupposes an inquiring if not a skeptical mood. Doubt is the pedagogue which leads the pupil to knowledge.
“Does he study the human body?—Dissection and anatomy are the foundations of his study. Chemistry?—The laboratory furnishes him the means of analysis and inquiry into physical substances. History?—He questions the statements which have been unquestioned heretofore, ransacks libraries for authorities in ancient volumes and more ancient documents. Literature?—The poem which he read only to enjoy he now subjects to the scalpel, inquires whether it really is beautiful, why it is beautiful, how its meter should be classified, how its figures have been constructed. Philosophy?—He subjects his own consciousness to a process of vivisection in an endeavor to ascertain the physiology and anatomy of the human spirit; brings his soul into the laboratory that he may learn its chemical constituents.
“Meanwhile the constructive and synthetic process is relegated to a second place, or lost sight of altogether. Does he study medicine?—He gives more attention to diagnosis than to therapeutics; to the analysis of disease than to the problem how to overcome it. Law?—He spends more time in analyzing cases than in developing power to grasp great principles and apply them in the administration of justice to varying conditions. The classics?—It is strange if he has not at graduation spent more weeks in the syntax and grammar of the language than he has spent hours in acquiring and appreciating the thought and the spirit of the great classic authors. It has been well and truly said of the modern student that he does not study grammar to understand Homer, he reads Homer to get the Greek grammar. His historical study has given him dates, events, a mental historical chart; perhaps, too, it has given him a scholar’s power to discriminate between the true and the false, the historical and the mythical in ancient legends: but not to many has it given an understanding of the significance of events, a comprehension of, or even new light upon, the real meaning of the life of man on the earth. Has he been studying philosophy?—Happy he is if, as a result of his analysis of self-consciousness, he has not become morbid respecting his own inner life, or cynically skeptical concerning the inner life of others.