F. A. Wolf, and various critics after him, contend that the genuineness of the Hipparchus was doubted in antiquity, on the authority of Ælian, V. H. viii. 2. But I maintain that this is not the meaning of the passage, unless upon the supposition that the word [Greek: mathêtê\s] is struck out of the text conjecturally. The passage may be perfectly well construed, leaving [Greek: mathêtê\s] in the text: we must undoubtedly suppose the author to have made an assertion historically erroneous: but this is nowise impossible in the case of Ælian. If you construe the passage as it stands, without such conjectural alteration, it does not justify Wolf's inference.] [Side-note: Minos. Question--What is the characteristic property connoted by the word [Greek: No/mos] or law?] I now come to the Minos. The subject of this dialogue is, the explanation or definition of Law. Sokrates says to his Companion or Collocutor,--Tell me what is the generic constituent of Law: All Laws are alike _quatenus_ Law. Take no note of the difference between one law and another, but explain to me what characteristic property it is, which is common to all Law, and is implied in or connoted by the name Law. This question is logically the same as that which Sokrates asks in the Hipparchus with reference to [Greek: ke/rdos] or gain. [Side-note: This question was discussed by the historical Sokrates, Memorabilia of Xenophon.] That the definition of [Greek: No/mos] or Law was discussed by Sokrates, we know, not only from the general description of his debates given in Xenophon, but also from the interesting description (in that author) of the conversation between the youthful Alkibiades and Perikles.[34] The interrogations employed by Alkibiades on that occasion are Sokratic, and must have been derived, directly or indirectly, from Sokrates. They are partially analogous to the questions of Sokrates in the dialogue Minos, and they end by driving Perikles into a confusion, left unexplained, between Law and Lawlessness. [Footnote 34: Xen. Mem. i. 1, 16; i. 2, 42-46.] [Side-note: Definitions of law--suggested and refuted. Law includes, as a portion of its meaning, justice, goodness, usefulness, &c. Bad decrees are not laws.]