Dialogue

Dialogue, a conversation between two or more persons, implying, however, greater unity and continuity of subject than an ordinary conversation. The ancient Greek philosophers were fond of this way of conducting their investigations and conveying their instructions. The Socratic dialogue is a conversation in the form of question and answer, so contrived that the person questioned is led himself to originate those ideas that the questioner wishes to bring before him. The dialogues of Plato are, as it were, philosophical dramas, in which the Socratic method of investigation is brought to bear upon speculative subjects. One of the greatest masters in this form was Lucian, whose keen-edged and brilliant wit was especially adapted to it. The dialogue is but ill adapted to the exposition of modern science, although elementary hand-books in the form of question and answer are still useful as supplying the student with a series of concrete facts tersely expressed. Of the more eminent modern writers of the literary forms of dialogue, we may mention Erasmus in Latin; Lessing, Herder, and Wieland among the Germans; Petrarch and Machiavelli in Italy; Fénelon, Fontenelle, and Diderot in France; and in England, Berkeley, Swift, Hurd, Harris, Helps, and Landor in his Imaginary Conversations. Dialogue combined with action gives us the drama.