Here, then, the problem is to make Piety object of know-
ledge, to find its ε༰ + ̑δος or ι + ̓δέοα which shall serve as παράδειγμα
whereby to judge particular cases; but the Dialogue ends
without doing more than stating the problem, for the
attempted solutions come, admittedly, to nothing. The
method which tries to get ὁρισμός out of ἐπακτικοὶ λόγοι is
evidently doomed to failure. That seems to be the logical
lesson of the Euthyphro. Such λόγοι can result, at best,
only in 'empirical laws', in general statements of the ὄτι
(as Aristotlewould say), whereas knowledge, in the true
sense, is of the διότι as determining or defining the ὅτι, and
of the ὅτι as determined or defined by the διότι. The
Socratic method of ἐεπαλτοὶ λόγοι is, to use Bacon's lan-
guage, inductio per enumerationem simplicem, not vera
inductio. That is, the fault of the Socratic method, as put
on the stage for us in these Dialogues of Search, is that of
taking each concept, Piety, Justice, Temperance, Courage,
by itself, instead of viewing it as part of an organic system
of knowledge whereby it is determined: in other words,
these Dialogues set forth the futility of trying to define
any single virtue without having got some theory of the
Social Good to which it belongs and contributes. The
advance which Plato's Doctrine of Ideas makes on the
Socratic method is just this, that the concept in question is
no longer made to depend precariously on the few particu-
lars observed, but is determined, shaped all round as it
were, by the system which includes it: in the light of that
system we come to see it for what it is, and are finally
convinced that it 'cannot be otherwise': it has become
independent of the few particulars the observation of
which first suggested it--its independence of these particu-
lars is, indeed, the τὸ χωριστὴν εἰ + ̑ναι which Aristotle (without

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