If we ask whether this science of dialectic which Plato only half
explains to us is more akin to logic or to metaphysics, the answer is
that in his mind the two sciences are not as yet distinguished, any
more than the subjective and objective aspects of the world and of man,
which German philosophy has revealed to us. Nor has he determined
whether his science of dialectic is at rest or in motion, concerned
with the contemplation of absolute being, or with a process of
development and evolution. Modern metaphysics may be described as the
science of abstractions, or as the science of the evolution of thought;
modern logic, when passing beyond the bounds of mere Aristotelian
forms, may be defined as the science of method. The germ of both of
them is contained in the Platonic dialectic; all metaphysicians have
something in common with the ideas of Plato; all logicians have derived
something from the method of Plato. The nearest approach in modern
philosophy to the universal science of Plato, is to be found in the
Hegelian ‘succession of moments in the unity of the idea.’ Plato and
Hegel alike seem to have conceived the world as the correlation of
abstractions; and not impossibly they would have understood one another
better than any of their commentators understand them (Swift’s Voyage
to Laputa. ‘Having a desire to see those ancients who were most
renowned for wit and learning, I set apart one day on purpose. I
proposed that Homer and Aristotle might appear at the head of all their
commentators; but these were so numerous that some hundreds were forced
to attend in the court and outward rooms of the palace. I knew, and
could distinguish these two heroes, at first sight, not only from the
crowd, but from each other. Homer was the taller and comelier person of
the two, walked very erect for one of his age, and his eyes were the
most quick and piercing I ever beheld. Aristotle stooped much, and made
use of a staff. His visage was meagre, his hair lank and thin, and his
voice hollow. I soon discovered that both of them were perfect
strangers to the rest of the company, and had never seen or heard of
them before. And I had a whisper from a ghost, who shall be nameless,
“That these commentators always kept in the most distant quarters from
their principals, in the lower world, through a consciousness of shame
and guilt, because they had so horribly misrepresented the meaning of
these authors to posterity.” I introduced Didymus and Eustathius to
Homer, and prevailed on him to treat them better than perhaps they
deserved, for he soon found they wanted a genius to enter into the
spirit of a poet. But Aristotle was out of all patience with the
account I gave him of Scotus and Ramus, as I presented them to him; and
he asked them “whether the rest of the tribe were as great dunces as
themselves?”’). There is, however, a difference between them: for
whereas Hegel is thinking of all the minds of men as one mind, which