democratical man, ib. 558, 559 foll., 561, 562; 9. 572; his place in regard to pleasure, 9. 587.
Desire, has a relaxing effect on the soul, 4. 430 A; the conflict of desire and reason, 4. 440 [cp. Phaedr. 253 foll.; Tim. 70 A];
—the desires divided into simple and qualified, 4. 437 foll.; into necessary and unnecessary, 8. 559.
Despots (masters), 5. 463 A. See Tyrant.
Destiny, the, of man in his own power, 10. 617 E.
Dialectic, the most difficult branch of philosophy, 6. 498; objects of, ib. 511; 7. 537 D; proceeds by a double method, 6. 511; compared to sight, 7. 532 A; capable of attaining to the idea of good, ibid.; gives firmness to hypotheses, ib. 533; the coping stone of the sciences, ib. 534 [cp. Phil. 57]; must be studied by the rulers, ib. 537; dangers of the study, ibid.; years to be spent in, ib. 539; distinguished from eristic, ib. D (cp. 5. 454 A; 6. 499 A):
—the dialectician has a conception of essence, 7. 534 [cp. Phaedo 75 D].
Dialectic. [Dialectic, the ‘coping stone of knowledge,’ is everywhere distinguished by Plato from eristic, i.e., argument for argument’s sake [cp. Euthyd. 275 foll., 293; Meno 75 D; Phaedo 101; Phil. 17; Theaet. 167 E]. It is that ‘gift of heaven’ (Phil. 16) which teaches men to employ the hypotheses of science, not as final results, but as points from which the mind may rise into the higher heaven of ideas and behold truth and being. This vague and magnificent conception was probably hardly clearer to Plato himself when he wrote the Republic than it is to us [cp. Introduction, p. xcii.]; but in the Sophist and Statesman it appears in a more definite form as a combination of analysis and synthesis by which we arrive at a true notion of things. [Cp. the ὑφηγημένη μεθόδος of Aristotle (Pol. i. 1, § 3; 8, § 1), which is an analogous mode of proceeding from the parts to the whole.] *In the Laws dialectic no