yond all finite and
conditional existance there is something _unconditional_ and _absolute_.
Having determined that there are truths which are independent of our own
minds--truths which are not individual, but universal--truths which
would be truths even if our minds did not perceive them, we are led
onward to a _super-sensual_ and super-natural ground, on which they
rest.

To reach this objective reality on which the ideas of reason repose, is
the grand effort of Plato's dialectic. He seeks, by a rigid analysis,
clearly to _separate_, and accurately to _define_ the _a priori_
conceptions of reason. And it was only when he had eliminated every
element which is particular, contingent, and relative, and had defined
the results in precise and accurate language, that he regarded the
process as complete. The ideas which are self-evident, universal, and
necessary, were then clearly disengaged, and raised to their pure and
absolute form. "You call the man dialectical who requires a reason of
the essence or being of each thing. As the dialectical man can define
the essence of every thing, so can he of the good. He can _define_ the
idea of the good, _separating_ it from all others--follow it through all
windings, as in a battle, resolved to mark it, not according to opinion,
but according to science."[581]

[Footnote 581: "Republic," bk. vii. ch. xiv.]

_Abstraction_ is thus the process, the instrument of the Platonic
dialectic. It is important, however, that we should distinguish between
the method of _comparative_ abstraction, as employed in physical
inquiry, and that _immediate_ abstraction, which is the special
instrument of philosophy. The former proceeds by comparison and
generalization, the latter by simple separation. The one yields a
contingent general principle as the result of the comparison of a number
of individual cases, the other gives an universal and necessary
principle by the analysis of a single concrete fact. As an illustration
we may instance "the principle of causality." To enable us to affirm
"that every event must have a cause," we do not need to compare and
generalize a great number of events. "The principle which compels us to
pronounce the judgment is already complete in the first as in the last
event; it can change in regard to its object, it can not change in
itself; it neither increases nor decreases with the greater or less
number of applications."[582] In the presence of a single event, the
un