Pagina 256 di 1391

Regarding the world as a point in immensity, and each individual

as a link in a never-ending chain of existence, he will not think

much of his own life, or be greatly afraid of death.

Adeimantus objects first of all to the form of the Socratic

reasoning, thus showing that Plato is aware of the imperfection

of his own method. He brings the accusation against himself which

might be brought against him by a modern logician-that he

extracts the answer because he knows how to put the question. In

a long argument words are apt to change their meaning slightly,

or premises may be assumed or conclusions inferred with rather

too much certainty or universality; the variation at each step

may be unobserved, and yet at last the divergence becomes

considerable. Hence the failure of attempts to apply arithmetical

or algebraic formulae to logic. The imperfection, or rather the

higher and more elastic nature of language, does not allow words

to have the precision of numbers or of symbols. And this quality

in language impairs the force of an argument which has many

steps.