Kierkegaard makes less (and rather too little) of the positive side of Socrates' method, his _maieutic_, or midwifery, by which we are led inductively from trivial instances to a new definition of a conception, a method which will fit all cases. Guided by a lofty personality, this Socratic irony becomes, in Kierkegaard's definition, merely "the negative liberation of subjectivity"; that is, not the family, nor society, nor the state, nor any rules superimposed from outside, but one's innermost self (or subjectivity) is to be the determining factor in one's life. And understood thus, irony as a negative element borders on the ethical conception of life. Romantic irony, on the other hand, laying main stress on subjective liberty, represents the æsthetic conduct of life. It was, we remember, the great demand of the Romantic period that one live poetically. That is, after having reduced all reality to possibilities, all existence to fragments, we are to choose _ad libitum_ one such possible existence, to consider that one's proper sphere, and for the rest to look ironically on all other reality as philistine. Undeniably, this license, through the infinitude of possibilities open to him, gives the ironist an enthusiastic sense of irresponsible freedom in which he "disports himself as does Leviathan in the deep." Again, the "æsthetical individual" is ill at ease in the world into which he is born. His typical ailment is a Byronesque _Weltschmerz._ He would fain mould the elements of existence to suit himself; that, is, "compose" not only himself but also his surroundings. But without fixed task and purpose, life will soon lose all continuity ("except that of boredom") and fall apart into disconnected moods and impulses. Hence, while supposing himself a superman, free, and his own master, the æsthetic individual is, in reality, a slave to the merest accidents. He is not self-directed, self-propelled; but--drifts. Over against this attitude Kierkegaard now sets the ethical, Christian life, one with a definite purpose and goal beyond itself. "It is one thing to compose one's own life, another, to let one's life be composed. The Christian lets his life be composed; and insofar a simple Christian lives far more poetically than many a genius." It would hardly be possible to characterize the contents of Kierkegaard's first great book, _Enten-Eller_ "Either-Or," more inclusively and tersely.