Without departing from Aristotle’s description, therefore, we may conceive the change operated by Sokrates in philosophical discussion under a new point of view. In exchanging Physics for Ethics, it vulgarized both the topics and the talk of philosophy. Physical philosophy as it stood in the age of Sokrates (before Aristotle had broached his peculiar definition of Nature) was merely an obscure, semi-poetical, hypothetical Philosophia Prima,[60] or rather Philosophia Prima and Philosophia Secunda blended in one. This is true of all its varieties, — of the Ionic philosophers as well as of Pythagoras, Parmenides, Herakleitus, Anaxagoras, Empedokles, and even Demokritus. Such philosophy, dimly enunciated and only half intelligible,[61] not merely did not tend to explain or clear up phenomenal experiences, but often added new difficulties of its own. It presented itself sometimes even as discrediting, overriding, and contradicting experience; but never as opening any deductive road from the Universal down to its particulars.[62] Such theories, though in circulation among a few disciples and opponents, were foreign and unsuitable to the talk of ordinary men. To pass from these cloudy mysteries to social topics and terms which were in every one’s mouth, was the important revolution in philosophy introduced in the age of Sokrates, and mainly by him.
[60] Aristot. Metaph. Γ. iii. p. 1005, a. 31.
[61] Ibid. A. x. p. 993, a. 15: ψελλιζομένῃ γὰρ ἔοικεν ἡ πρώτη φιλοσοφία περὶ πάντων, ἅτε νέα τε κατ’ ἀρχὰς οὖσα καὶ τὸ πρῶτον.
[62] Aristot. Metaph. α. i. p. 993, b. 6: τὸ ὅλον τι ἔχειν καὶ μέρος μὴ δύνασθαι δηλοῖ τὸ χαλεπὸν αὐτῆς (τῆς περὶ τῆς ἀληθείας θεωρίας).
Alexander ap. Schol. p. 104, Bonitz: εἰς ἔννοιαν μὲν τοῦ ὅλου καὶ ἐπίστασιν πάντας ἐλθεῖν, μηδὲν δὲ μέρος αὐτῆς ἐξακριβώσασθαι δυνηθῆναι, δηλοῖ τὸ χαλεπὸν αὐτῆς.
Aristotle indicates how much the Philosophia Prima of his earlier predecessors was uncongenial to and at variance with phenomenal experience — Metaphys. A. v. p. 986, b. 31.
To shape their theories in such a way — τὰ φαινόμενα εἰ μέλλει τις ἀποδώσειν (Metaphys. Λ. viii. p. 1073, b. 36), was an obligation which philosophers hardly felt incumbent on them prior to the Aristotelian age. Compare Simplikius (ad. Aristot. Physic. I.), p. 328, a. 1-26, Schol. Br.; Schol. (ad. Aristot. De CÅ“lo III. I.) p. 509, a. 26-p. 510, a. 13.
The drift of the Sokratic procedure was to bring men into the habit of defining those universal terms which they had hitherto used undefined, the definitions being verified by induction of particulars as the ultimate authority. It was a procedure built upon common speech, but improving on common speech; the talk of every man being in propositions, each including a subject and predicate, but neither subject nor predicate being ever defined. It was the mission of Sokrates to make men painfully sensible of that deficiency, as well as to enforce upon them the inductive evidence by which alone it could be rectified. Now the Analytic and Dialectic of Aristotle grew directly out of this Sokratic procedure, and out of the Platonic dialogues in so far as they enforced and illustrated it. When Sokrates had supplied the negative stimulus and indication of what was amiss, together with the appeal to Induction as final authority, Aristotle furnished, or did much to furnish, the positive analysis and complementary precepts, necessary to clear up, justify, and assure the march of reasoned truth.[63] What Aristotle calls the syllogistic principia, or the principles of syllogistic demonstration, are nothing else than the steps towards reasoned truth, and the precautions against those fallacious appearances that simulate it. The steps are stated in their most general terms, as involving both Deduction and Induction; though in Aristotle we find the deductive portion copiously unfolded and classified, while Induction, though recognized as the only verifying foundation of the whole, is left without expansion or illustration.
[63] Though the theorizing and the analysis of Aristotle presuppose and recognize the Sokratic procedure, yet, if we read the Xenophontic Memorabilia, IV. vii., and compare therewith the first two chapters of Aristotle’s Metaphysica, in which he describes and extols Philosophia Prima, we shall see how radically antipathetic were the two points of view: Sokrates confining himself to practical results — μέχρι τοῦ ὠφελιμοῦ; Aristotle extolling Philosophia Prima, because it soars above practical results, and serves as its own reward, elevating the philosopher to a partial communion with the contemplative self-sufficiency of the Gods. Indeed the remark of Aristotle, p. 983, a. 1-6, denying altogether the jealousy ascribed to the Gods, &c., is almost a reply to the opinion expressed by Sokrates, that a man by such overweening researches brought upon himself the displeasure of the Gods, as prying into their secrets (Xen. Mem. IV. vii. 6; I. i. 12).
If we go through the Sokratic conversations as reported in the Memorabilia of Xenophon, we shall find illustration of what has been just stated: we shall see Sokrates recognizing and following the common speech of men, in propositions combining subject and predicate; but trying to fix the meaning of both these terms, and to test the consistency of the universal predications by appeal to particulars. The syllogizing and the inductive processes are exhibited both of them in actual work on particular points of discussion. Now on these processes Aristotle brings his analysis to bear, eliciting and enunciating in general terms their principia and their conditions. We have seen that he expressly declares the analysis of these principia to belong to First Philosophy.[64] And thus it is that First Philosophy as conceived by Aristotle, acknowledges among its fundamenta the habits of common Hellenic speech; subject only to correction and control by the Sokratic cross-examining and testing discipline. He stands distinguished among the philosophers for the respectful attention with which he collects and builds upon the beliefs actually prevalent among mankind.[65] Herein as well as in other respects his First Philosophy not only differed from that of all the pre-Sokratic philosophers (such as Herakleitus, Parmenides, Anaxagoras, &c.) by explaining the principia of Analytic and Dialectic as well as those of Physics and Physiology, but it also differed from that of the post-Sokratic and semi-Sokratic Plato, by keeping up a closer communion both with Sokrates and with common speech. Though Plato in his Dialogues of Search appears to apply the inductive discipline of Sokrates, and to handle the Universal as referable to and dependent upon its particulars; yet the Platonic Philosophia Prima proceeds upon a view totally different. It is a fusion of Parmenides with Herakleitus;[66] divorcing the Universal altogether from its particulars; treating the Universal as an independent reality and as the only permanent reality; negating the particulars as so many unreal, evanescent, ever-changing copies or shadows thereof. Aristotle expressly intimates his dissent from the divorce or separation thus introduced by Plato. He proclaims his adherence to the practice of Sokrates, which kept the two elements together, and which cognized particulars as the ultimate reality and test for the Universal.[67] Upon this doctrine his First Philosophy is built: being distinguished hereby from all the other varieties broached by either his predecessors or contemporaries.