Dialectic has no definite sphere of this kind, not being confined to a
single genus. Otherwise its method would not be interrogative; for the
interrogative method is barred to the demonstrator, who cannot use the
opposite facts to prove the same nexus. This was shown in my work on
the syllogism.
12
If a syllogistic question is equivalent to a proposition embodying
one of the two sides of a contradiction, and if each science has its
peculiar propositions from which its peculiar conclusion is developed,
then there is such a thing as a distinctively scientific question, and
it is the interrogative form of the premisses from which the
'appropriate' conclusion of each science is developed. Hence it is
clear that not every question will be relevant to geometry, nor to
medicine, nor to any other science: only those questions will be
geometrical which form premisses for the proof of the theorems of
geometry or of any other science, such as optics, which uses the
same basic truths as geometry. Of the other sciences the like is true.
Of these questions the geometer is bound to give his account, using
the basic truths of geometry in conjunction with his previous
conclusions; of the basic truths the geometer, as such, is not bound
to give any account.
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