The next great division of our subject leads us to consider, what is by no means a matter of secondary importance, the peculiar and characteristic manner in which Socrates inculcated the lofty principles of his ethical philosophy--the so-called Socratic method of teaching and of preaching. Now, with regard to this, in the first place, what lies on the surface is that the Socratic method of inculcating the principles of morals consists in a sort of catechising or cross-questioning {53} such as is practised by lawyers in Westminster Hall, a method which is generally considered not the most pleasant of operations even there, and which if practised now-a-days by private persons, whether in West-end saloons or in East-end parlours, would certainly be considered extremely ill-bred. And that this should be the general feeling of all classes of mankind with regard to the matter is natural enough; for the object of the operation being generally to convince the person operated on that he knows nothing about what he professes to know, and to do this by publicly entangling him in the web of his own arguments, and forcing him into a self-contradiction, it is obvious that self-esteem and love of approbation will, in ninety-nine cases out of the hundred, be strong enough to stir a certain degree of resentment in the breast of the sufferer. Nay, sometimes will he not feel like a poor fish cleverly hooked by an expert angler, and played about perhaps more to show the skill of the captor than from any consideration of the feelings of the captive? All this is very true; and no doubt Socrates made not a few enemies by this extremely personal method of exposing the manifold superficialities and incompetencies of the persons with whom he conversed. But, upon the whole, that he was rather a popular man, or more correctly, an extremely popular man, in Athens, during a long lifetime, notwithstanding the catastrophe of the hemlock, seems pretty plain both from Xenophon and Plato. This popularity, in the face of what certainly was a rather odious mission, arose both from the kindly sympathetic nature of the man, and from the admirable tact which the philosopher constantly displayed in dealing {54} with those whom he submitted to the operation of his ethical probe. Though in the majority of cases he was found to end in a direct contradiction of the original position of his adversary, he always commenced by agreeing with him; and if he saw nothing absolutely to agree with in the way of argument, he took care to launch him in a good humour by praising some excellence in him or about him. Thus, in the case of Euthydemus, mentioned above as the possessor of a large library, he gives prominence to the praiseworthy ambition shown by the young man to spend his money rather on the sentences of the wise than on the vanities of external pomp and pernicious dissipation; and thus, though the young book-fancier departs at the end of the dialogue altogether