knowledge: insomuch that he makes one or two answers very much beyond his years, exciting the greatest astonishment and admiration, in Sokrates as well as in Kriton.[8] In this respect, the youth Kleinias serves the same illustrative purpose as the youthful slave in the Menon:[9] each is supposed to be quickened by the interrogatory of Sokrates, into a manifestation of knowledge noway expected, nor traceable to any teaching. But in the Menon, this magical evocation of knowledge from an untaught youth is explained by the theory of reminiscence, pre-existence, and omniscience, of the soul: while in the Euthydêmus, no allusion is made to any such theory, nor to any other cause except the stimulus of the Sokratic cross-questioning. [Footnote 6: Plat. Euthydêm. pp. 279-288.] [Footnote 7: Plat. Euthyd. pp. 275 E--276 E. [Greek: Pa/nta toiau=ta ê(mei=s e)rôtô=men a)/phukta], pp. 287 B--295 B--296 A, &c.] [Footnote 8: Plat. Euthydêm. pp. 290-291. The unexpected wisdom, exhibited by the youth Kleinias in his concluding answer, can be understood only as illustrating the obstetric efficacy of Sokratic interrogations. See Winckelmann, Proleg. ad Euthyd. pp. xxxiii. xxxiv. The words [Greek: tô=n kreitto/nôn] must have the usual signification, as recognised by Routh and Heindorf, though Schleiermacher treats it as absurd, p. 552, notes.] [Footnote 9: Plato, Menon, pp. 82-85.] [Side-note: Wherein this contrast does not consist.] In the dialogue _Euthydêmus_, then, one main purpose of Plato is to exhibit in contrast two distinct modes of questioning: one practised by Euthydemus and Dionysodorus; the other, by Sokrates. Of these two, it is the first which is shown up in the most copious and elaborate manner: the second is made subordinate, serving mainly as a standard of comparison with the first. We must take care however to understand in what the contrast between the two consists, and in what it does not consist. The contrast does not consist in this--that Sokrates so contrives his string of questions as to bring out some established and positive conclusion, while Euthydemus and his brother leave everything in perplexity. Such is not the fact. Sokrates ends without any result, and with a confession of his inability to find any. Professing earnest anxiety to stimulate Kleinias in the path of virtue, he is at the same time unable to define what the capital condition of virtue is.[10] On this point, then, there is no contrast between Sokrates and his competitors: if they land their pupil in embarrassment, so does he. Nor, again, does Sokrates stand distinguished from them by affirming (or rather implying in his questions) nothing but what is true and indisputable.[11] [Footnote 10: Plat. Euthydêm. pp. 291 A--293 A; Plat. Kleitophon, pp. 409-410.] [Footnote 11: See Plat. Euthydêm. p. 281 C-D, where undoubtedly the positions laid down by Sokrates would not have passed without contradiction by an opponent.] [Side-note: Wherein it does consist.]