e, an incorrect answer may properly
be followed up so as to lead the pupil into a contradiction, but it is
usually not desirable to embarrass him unnecessarily. It is never
agreeable to be covered with the confusion which such a situation
usually brings about. The other phase of the Socratic method, the
_maieutics_, consisted in leading the pupil, by a further series of
questions, to formulate the correct opinion of which the first
hastily-given answer was only a fragment. This coincides with the
developing method and may sometimes be profitably employed with young
children.

EXAMPLE OF SOCRATIC QUESTIONING.--As an example of Socratic
questioning may be noted the following taken from Plato's _Minos_.
Socrates has questioned his companion concerning the nature of Law and
has received the answer, "Law is the decree of the city." To show his
companion the inadequacy of this definition, Socrates engages with him
in the following dialogue:

_Socrates_: Justice and law, are highly honourable; injustice and
lawlessness, highly dishonourable; the former preserves cities, the
latter ruins them?

_Pupil_: Yes, it does.

_Socrates_: Well, then! we must consider law as something
honourable; and seek after it, under the assumption that it is a
good thing. You defined law to be the decree of the city: Are not
some decrees good, others evil?

_Pupil_: Unquestionably.

_Socrates_: But we have already said that law is not evil?

_Pupil_: I admit it.

_Socrates_: It is incorrect therefore to answer, as you did
broadly, that law is the decree of the city. An evil decree cannot
be law.

_Pupil_: I see that it is incorrect.

Having shown his pupil the fallacy of his first definition, Socrates
proceeds to teach him that only what is right is lawful. This part of
the dialogue proceeds as follows:

_Socrates_: Those who know, must of necessity hold the same opinion
with each other, on matters which they know: always and everywhere?

_Pupil_: Yes--always and everywhere.

_Socrates_: Physicians write respecting matters of health what they
account to be true, and these writings of theirs are the medical
laws?

_Pupil_: Certainly they are.

_Socrates_: The like is true respecting the laws of farming, the
laws of gardening, the laws of cookery. All these are the writings
of persons, knowing in each of the