Book 13
4
for he was trying to reason logically, and the starting-point of all logical reasoning is the essence. At that time there was as yet no such proficiency in Dialectic that men could study contraries independently of the essence, and consider whether both contraries come under the same science.
5
There are two innovationsThis is perhaps too strong a word. What Aristotle means is that Socrates was the first thinker who attached importance to general definitions and systematically used arguments from analogy in order to arrive at them. The Greeks as a whole were only too readily impressed by analogy; Socrates merely developed an already prevalent tendency. For an example of his method see the reference at Aristot. Met. 5.29.5 n. which, may fairly be ascribed to Socrates: inductive reasoning and general definition. Both of these are associated with the starting-point of scientific knowledge.
5
But whereas Socrates regarded neither universals nor definitions as existing in separation, the Idealists gave them a separate existence, and to these universals and definitions of existing things they gave the name of Ideas.Cf. Introduction.
6
Hence on their view it followed by virtually the same argument that there are Ideas of all terms which are predicated universallyWith sect. 6-13 cf. Aristot. Met. 1.9.1-8, which are almost verbally the same. See Introduction.; and the result was very nearly the same as if a man who wishes to count a number of things were to suppose that he could not do so when they are few, and yet were to try to count them when he has added to them. For it is hardly an exaggeration to say that there are more Forms than there are particular sensible things (in seeking for whose causes these thinkers were led on from particulars to Ideas); because corresponding to each thing there is a synonymous entity, apart from the substances (and in the case of non-substantial things there is a One over the Many) both in our everyday world and in the realm of eternal entities.
