In "Menon," the object of study is virtue. Socrates does not exactly pose as a schoolmaster. He knows that he is called the wisest of men, but explains that this is so, because others have a conceited opinion of their wisdom, while his wisdom consists in humbly knowing that he knows nothing. He does not so much try to teach what virtue is, as to stimulate his disciples to search for it. But his idea of research is distorted. Among the immortal things which he transcendentally separates from mortal things, he also classifies the soul, "the immortal soul" which dies and lives again, and has always lived, knows everything, but must "remember." Thus his research becomes a cudgeling of the brain, an introspective speculation. He is not looking for understanding by way of natural science, through the interrelations of the world, but speculatively through the inside of the human skull. In order to make his theory of memory plain, Socrates in "Menon" calls an ignorant slave and instructs him in the fundamentals of geometry. He quickly succeeds in getting from the ignorant fellow, who at first gives wrong answers, the correct statements by recalling the connections of thought by clever questioning. He thus demonstrates to his satisfaction that man has wisdom _a priori_ in his head. But the Socratic-Platonic art of logic has overlooked that such wisdom requires concepts which are fixed in memory by internal _and_ external interrelations. The socalled immortal soul with its innate wisdom has troubled the world a good while thereafter. You must not think that I have a poor opinion of Plato, because I criticize him in this way. On the contrary, I am highly delighted with his divine and immortal writings. "Honor to Socrates, honor to Plato, but still more honor to truth." I also assure you that I am a great admirer of natural science, but nevertheless I should like to show you that it indulges in narrow reasoning.