Note Footnote 2: — INTRODUCTION.

A thesis or proposition is put up for debate, e.g., that knowledge is nothing else than sensible perception,2 that it is a greater evil to do wrong than to suffer wrong,3 that the love of gain is not reprehensible.4 There are two disputants, but they do not speak on the question by turns, so many minutes being allowed to each as in a modern encounter of wits. One of the two, who may be called the Questioner, is limited to asking questions, the other, the Respondent, is limited to answering. Further, the Respondent can answer only "Yes" or "No," with perhaps a little explanation: on his side the Questioner must ask only questions that admit of the simple answer "Yes" or "No". The Questioner's business is to extract from the Respondent admissions involving the opposite of what he has undertaken to maintain. The Questioner tries in short to make him contradict himself. Only a very stupid Respondent would do this at once: the Questioner plies him with general principles, analogies, plain cases; leads him on from admission to admission, and then putting the admissions together convicts him out of his own mouth of inconsistency.5