It is thus, at first sight, obvious that it was a higher and more comprehensive science than the art of deduction. For it was directed to the discovery and establishment of First Principles. Its sole object was the discovery of truth. His dialectic was an _analytical_ and _inductive method_. "In Dialectic Science," says _Alcinous_, "there is a dividing and a defining, and an analyzing, and, moreover, that which is inductive and syllogistic."[562] Even _Bacon_, who is usually styled "the Father of the Inductive method," and who, too often, speaks disparagingly of Plato, is constrained to admit that he followed the inductive method. "An induction such as will be of advantage for the invention and demonstration of Arts and Sciences must distinguish the essential nature of things (naturam) by proper rejections and exclusions, and then after as many of these negatives as are sufficient, by comprising, above all (super), the positives. Up to this time this had not been done, nor even attempted, _except by Plato alone, who, in order to attain his definitions and ideas, has used, to a certain extent, the method of Induction_."[563] [Footnote 562: "Introduction to the Doctrines of Plato," vol. vi. p. 249. "The Platonic Method was the method of induction."--Cousin's "History of Philosophy," vol. i. p. 307.] [Footnote 563: "Novum Organum," vol. i. p. 105.] The process of investigation adopted by Plato thus corresponds with the inductive method of modern times, with this simple difference, that Bacon conducted science into the world of _matter_, whilst Plato directed it to the world of _mind_. The dialectic of Plato aimed at the discovery of the "laws of thought;" the modern inductive philosophy aims at the discovery of the "laws of nature." The latter concerns itself chiefly with the inquiry after the "causes" of material phenomena; the former concerned itself with the inquiry after the "first principles" of all knowledge and of all existence. Both processes are, therefore, carried on by _interrogation_. The analysis which seeks for a law of nature proceeds by the interrogation of nature. The analysis of Plato proceeds by the interrogation of mind, in order to discover the fundamental _ideas_ which lie at the basis of all cognition, which determine all our processes of thought, and which, in their final analysis, reveal the REAL BEING, which is the ground and explanation of all existence.