From this defective assumption Aristotle is only partially free. He attempted, it is true, to supply the defects in the Socratic and Platonic theory of conceptions by observation of a kind with which Plato’s experimental knowledge cannot be compared either for accuracy or extent. With that attempt he also combined a complete transformation of the Platonic metaphysics, whereby he secured the same position for particulars in relation to the universal that his predecessor had secured for observation in relation to conceptional knowledge. But Aristotle did not go far enough. In his theory of knowledge he cannot wholly discard the assumption that the soul has its knowledge by a process of development from within, and is not only endowed with the capacity of thinking, but possesses also from its birth the substance of ideas. In his scientific method a critical investigation of common notions and of idiom—that in fact which he himself calls proof by probabilities—is constantly taking the place of strict induction. His endeavours to harmonise the two antagonistic currents in Plato’s teaching may have been undertaken in all sincerity, but the antagonism was too deeply seated to yield to his efforts. It not only reappears in the fundamental ideas of his system, but it colours all its general results. Beginning with the antithesis between form and matter, it ends in the contrast between the world and a soul independent of the world, in the conception of reason as something above man, never combining with the lower parts of his nature to form one complete living unity. [B. Connection between the theories of Aristotle and Greek character.]