Discourses: Book 2 12 : 2

How did Socrates act? He used to force the man who was arguing with him to be his witness, and never needed any other witness. That is why he could say, "I can dispense with all the others, and am always satisfied to have my fellow-disputant for a witness; and the votes of the rest I do not take, but only that of my fellow-disputant." For he used to make so clear the consequences which followed from the concepts, that absolutely everyone realized the contradiction involved and gave up the battle. "And so does the man who feels envy rejoice in it?"—"Not at all; but he experiences pain rather than joy." (By the contradiction in terms he has moved the other party to the argument.) "Very well, does envy seem to you to be feeling of pain at evils? And yet what envy is there of evils?" (Consequently, he has made his opponent say that envy is a feeling of pain at good things.) "Very well, would a man feel envy about matters that did not concern him in the least?"—"Not at all." And so he filled out and articulated the concept, and after that went his way; he did not start in by saying, "Define envy for me," and then, when the other had defined it, remark, "That is a bad definition you have made, for the definition term does not fit the subject defined." Those are technical terms, and for that reason wearisome to the layman and hard for him to follow, and yet we are unable to dispense with them. But as to terms which the layman could himself follow, and so, by the assistance of his own external impressions, be able to accept or reject some proposition—we are absolutely unable to move him by their use. The result is that, recognizing this incapacity of ours, we naturally refrain from attempting the matter, those of us, I mean, who are at all cautious. But the rash multitude of men, when once they have let themselves in for something of this sort, get confused themselves and confuse others, and finally, after reviling their opponents and being themselves reviled, they walk away.