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Yet this world without us is still a world of ideas. With Plato

the investigation of nature is another department of knowledge,

and in this he seeks to attain only probable conclusions

(Timaeus).

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.