Little stress is to be laid on this circumstance, I think; and the terms in which Xenophon describes the method of Sokratês (διαλέγοντας κατὰ γένη τὰ πράγματα, Mem. iv, 5, 12) seem to imply the one process as well as the other: indeed, it was scarcely possible to keep them apart, with so abundant a talker as Sokratês. Plato doubtless both enlarged and systematized the method in every way, and especially made greater use of the process of division, because he pushed the dialogue further into positive scientific research than Sokratês.
[695] Plato, Phædrus, c. 109, p. 265, D; Sophistês, c. 83, p. 253, E.
[696] Aristot. Topic. viii, 14, p. 164, b. 2. Ἐστὶ μὲν γὰρ ὡς ἁπλῶς εἰπεῖν διαλεκτικὸς, ὁ προτατικὸς καὶ ἐνταστικός. Ἐστὶ δὲ τὸ μὲν προτείνεισθαι, ἓν ποιεῖν τὰ πλείω (δεῖ γὰρ ἓν ὅλως ληφθῆναι πρὸς ὃ ὁ λόγος) τὸ δ᾽ ἐνίστασθαι, τὸ ἓν πολλά· ἢ γὰρ διαιρεῖ ἢ ἀναιρεῖ, τὸ μὲν διδοὺς, το δ᾽ οὐ, τῶν προτεινομένων.
It was from Sokratês that dialectic skill derived its great extension and development (Aristot. Metaphys. xiii, 4, p. 1078, b).
[697] What Plato makes Sokratês say in the Euthyphron, c. 12, p. 11, D, Ἄκων εἰμὶ σοφός, etc., may be accounted as true at least in the beginning of the active career of Sokratês; compare the Hippias Minor, c. 18, p. 376, B; Lachês, c. 33, p. 200, E.
[698] Xenoph. Memor. i, 1, 12-16. Πότερόν ποτε νομίσαντες ἱκανῶς ἤδη τἀνθρώπεια εἰδέναι ἔρχονται (the physical philosophers) ἐπὶ τὸ περὶ τῶν τοιούτων φροντίζειν· ἢ τὰ μὲν ἀνθρώπεια παρέντες, τὰ δὲ δαιμόνια σκοποῦντες, ἡγοῦνται τὰ προσήκοντα πράττειν.... Αὐτὸς δὲ περὶ τῶν ἀνθρωπείων ἀεὶ διελέγετο σκοπῶν, τί εὐσεβὲς, τί ἀσεβὲς καὶ περὶ τῶν ἄλλων, ἃ τοὺς μὲν εἰδότας ἡγεῖτο καλοὺς κἀγαθοὺς εἶναι, τοὺς δὲ ἀγνοοῦντας ἀνδραποδώδεις ἂν δικαίως κεκλῆσθαι.
Plato, Apolog. Sok. c. 5, p. 20, D. ἥπερ ἐστὶν ἴσως ἀνθρωπίνη σοφία· τῷ ὄντι γὰρ κινδυνεύω ταύτην εἶναι σοφός· οὗτοι δὲ τάχ᾽ ἄν, οὓς ἄρτι ἔλεγον, μείζω τινὰ ἢ κατ᾽ ἄνθρωπον σοφίαν σοφοὶ εἶεν, etc. Compare c. 9, p. 23, A.
[699] It is this narrow purpose that Plutarch ascribes to Sokratês, Quæstiones Platonicæ, p. 999, E; compare also Tennemann, Geschicht. der Philos. part ii, art. i, vol. ii, p. 81.
Amidst the customary outpouring of groundless censure against the sophists, which Tennemann here gives, one assertion is remarkable. He tells us that it was the more easy for Sokratês to put down the sophists, since their shallowness and worthlessness, after a short period of vogue, had already been detected by intelligent men, and was becoming discredited.
It is strange to find such an assertion made, for a period between 420-399 B.C., the era when Protagoras, Prodikus, Hippias, etc., reached the maximum of celebrity.