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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Meno, by Plato
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Meno
+
+Author: Plato
+
+Translator: Benjamin Jowett
+
+Posting Date: September 21, 2008 [EBook #1643]
+Release Date: February, 1999
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MENO ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Sue Asscher
+
+
+
+
+
+MENO
+
+by Plato
+
+Translated by Benjamin Jowett
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+This Dialogue begins abruptly with a question of Meno, who asks,
+'whether virtue can be taught.' Socrates replies that he does not as yet
+know what virtue is, and has never known anyone who did. 'Then he cannot
+have met Gorgias when he was at Athens.' Yes, Socrates had met him, but
+he has a bad memory, and has forgotten what Gorgias said. Will Meno tell
+him his own notion, which is probably not very different from that of
+Gorgias? 'O yes--nothing easier: there is the virtue of a man, of a
+woman, of an old man, and of a child; there is a virtue of every age and
+state of life, all of which may be easily described.'
+
+Socrates reminds Meno that this is only an enumeration of the virtues
+and not a definition of the notion which is common to them all. In a
+second attempt Meno defines virtue to be 'the power of command.' But to
+this, again, exceptions are taken. For there must be a virtue of those
+who obey, as well as of those who command; and the power of command must
+be justly or not unjustly exercised. Meno is very ready to admit that
+justice is virtue: 'Would you say virtue or a virtue, for there are
+other virtues, such as courage, temperance, and the like; just as round
+is a figure, and black and white are colours, and yet there are other
+figures and other colours. Let Meno take the examples of figure and
+colour, and try to define them.' Meno confesses his inability, and after
+a process of interrogation, in which Socrates explains to him the
+nature of a 'simile in multis,' Socrates himself defines figure as 'the
+accompaniment of colour.' But some one may object that he does not know
+the meaning of the word 'colour;' and if he is a candid friend, and not
+a mere disputant, Socrates is willing to furnish him with a simpler and
+more philosophical definition, into which no disputed word is allowed to
+intrude: 'Figure is the limit of form.' Meno imperiously insists that
+he must still have a definition of colour. Some raillery follows; and
+at length Socrates is induced to reply, 'that colour is the effluence of
+form, sensible, and in due proportion to the sight.' This definition is
+exactly suited to the taste of Meno, who welcomes the familiar language
+of Gorgias and Empedocles. Socrates is of opinion that the more abstract
+or dialectical definition of figure is far better.
+
+Now that Meno has been made to understand the nature of a general
+definition, he answers in the spirit of a Greek gentleman, and in the
+words of a poet, 'that virtue is to delight in things honourable, and to
+have the power of getting them.' This is a nearer approximation than
+he has yet made to a complete definition, and, regarded as a piece
+of proverbial or popular morality, is not far from the truth. But the
+objection is urged, 'that the honourable is the good,' and as every one
+equally desires the good, the point of the definition is contained in
+the words, 'the power of getting them.' 'And they must be got justly or
+with justice.' The definition will then stand thus: 'Virtue is the power
+of getting good with justice.' But justice is a part of virtue, and
+therefore virtue is the getting of good with a part of virtue. The
+definition repeats the word defined.
+
+Meno complains that the conversation of Socrates has the effect of a
+torpedo's shock upon him. When he talks with other persons he has plenty
+to say about virtue; in the presence of Socrates, his thoughts desert
+him. Socrates replies that he is only the cause of perplexity in others,
+because he is himself perplexed. He proposes to continue the enquiry.
+But how, asks Meno, can he enquire either into what he knows or into
+what he does not know? This is a sophistical puzzle, which, as Socrates
+remarks, saves a great deal of trouble to him who accepts it. But the
+puzzle has a real difficulty latent under it, to which Socrates will
+endeavour to find a reply. The difficulty is the origin of knowledge:--
+
+He has heard from priests and priestesses, and from the poet Pindar, of
+an immortal soul which is born again and again in successive periods of
+existence, returning into this world when she has paid the penalty of
+ancient crime, and, having wandered over all places of the upper and
+under world, and seen and known all things at one time or other, is by
+association out of one thing capable of recovering all. For nature is
+of one kindred; and every soul has a seed or germ which may be developed
+into all knowledge. The existence of this latent knowledge is further
+proved by the interrogation of one of Meno's slaves, who, in the skilful
+hands of Socrates, is made to acknowledge some elementary relations
+of geometrical figures. The theorem that the square of the diagonal
+is double the square of the side--that famous discovery of primitive
+mathematics, in honour of which the legendary Pythagoras is said to
+have sacrificed a hecatomb--is elicited from him. The first step in the
+process of teaching has made him conscious of his own ignorance. He
+has had the 'torpedo's shock' given him, and is the better for the
+operation. But whence had the uneducated man this knowledge? He had
+never learnt geometry in this world; nor was it born with him; he must
+therefore have had it when he was not a man. And as he always either was
+or was not a man, he must have always had it. (Compare Phaedo.)
+
+After Socrates has given this specimen of the true nature of teaching,
+the original question of the teachableness of virtue is renewed. Again
+he professes a desire to know 'what virtue is' first. But he is willing
+to argue the question, as mathematicians say, under an hypothesis. He
+will assume that if virtue is knowledge, then virtue can be taught.
+(This was the stage of the argument at which the Protagoras concluded.)
+
+Socrates has no difficulty in showing that virtue is a good, and
+that goods, whether of body or mind, must be under the direction of
+knowledge. Upon the assumption just made, then, virtue is teachable. But
+where are the teachers? There are none to be found. This is extremely
+discouraging. Virtue is no sooner discovered to be teachable, than the
+discovery follows that it is not taught. Virtue, therefore, is and is
+not teachable.
+
+In this dilemma an appeal is made to Anytus, a respectable and
+well-to-do citizen of the old school, and a family friend of Meno,
+who happens to be present. He is asked 'whether Meno shall go to the
+Sophists and be taught.' The suggestion throws him into a rage. 'To
+whom, then, shall Meno go?' asks Socrates. To any Athenian gentleman--to
+the great Athenian statesmen of past times. Socrates replies here, as
+elsewhere (Laches, Prot.), that Themistocles, Pericles, and other great
+men, had sons to whom they would surely, if they could have done so,
+have imparted their own political wisdom; but no one ever heard that
+these sons of theirs were remarkable for anything except riding and
+wrestling and similar accomplishments. Anytus is angry at the imputation
+which is cast on his favourite statesmen, and on a class to which he
+supposes himself to belong; he breaks off with a significant hint. The
+mention of another opportunity of talking with him, and the suggestion
+that Meno may do the Athenian people a service by pacifying him, are
+evident allusions to the trial of Socrates.
+
+Socrates returns to the consideration of the question 'whether virtue is
+teachable,' which was denied on the ground that there are no teachers of
+it: (for the Sophists are bad teachers, and the rest of the world do
+not profess to teach). But there is another point which we failed to
+observe, and in which Gorgias has never instructed Meno, nor Prodicus
+Socrates. This is the nature of right opinion. For virtue may be under
+the guidance of right opinion as well as of knowledge; and right opinion
+is for practical purposes as good as knowledge, but is incapable of
+being taught, and is also liable, like the images of Daedalus, to 'walk
+off,' because not bound by the tie of the cause. This is the sort of
+instinct which is possessed by statesmen, who are not wise or knowing
+persons, but only inspired or divine. The higher virtue, which is
+identical with knowledge, is an ideal only. If the statesman had this
+knowledge, and could teach what he knew, he would be like Tiresias in
+the world below,--'he alone has wisdom, but the rest flit like shadows.'
+
+This Dialogue is an attempt to answer the question, Can virtue be
+taught? No one would either ask or answer such a question in modern
+times. But in the age of Socrates it was only by an effort that the mind
+could rise to a general notion of virtue as distinct from the particular
+virtues of courage, liberality, and the like. And when a hazy conception
+of this ideal was attained, it was only by a further effort that the
+question of the teachableness of virtue could be resolved.
+
+The answer which is given by Plato is paradoxical enough, and seems
+rather intended to stimulate than to satisfy enquiry. Virtue is
+knowledge, and therefore virtue can be taught. But virtue is not taught,
+and therefore in this higher and ideal sense there is no virtue and no
+knowledge. The teaching of the Sophists is confessedly inadequate, and
+Meno, who is their pupil, is ignorant of the very nature of general
+terms. He can only produce out of their armoury the sophism, 'that you
+can neither enquire into what you know nor into what you do not know;'
+to which Socrates replies by his theory of reminiscence.
+
+To the doctrine that virtue is knowledge, Plato has been constantly
+tending in the previous Dialogues. But the new truth is no sooner found
+than it vanishes away. 'If there is knowledge, there must be teachers;
+and where are the teachers?' There is no knowledge in the higher sense
+of systematic, connected, reasoned knowledge, such as may one day be
+attained, and such as Plato himself seems to see in some far off vision
+of a single science. And there are no teachers in the higher sense of
+the word; that is to say, no real teachers who will arouse the spirit
+of enquiry in their pupils, and not merely instruct them in rhetoric or
+impart to them ready-made information for a fee of 'one' or of 'fifty
+drachms.' Plato is desirous of deepening the notion of education, and
+therefore he asserts the paradox that there are no educators. This
+paradox, though different in form, is not really different from the
+remark which is often made in modern times by those who would depreciate
+either the methods of education commonly employed, or the standard
+attained--that 'there is no true education among us.'
+
+There remains still a possibility which must not be overlooked. Even
+if there be no true knowledge, as is proved by 'the wretched state of
+education,' there may be right opinion, which is a sort of guessing
+or divination resting on no knowledge of causes, and incommunicable to
+others. This is the gift which our statesmen have, as is proved by the
+circumstance that they are unable to impart their knowledge to their
+sons. Those who are possessed of it cannot be said to be men of science
+or philosophers, but they are inspired and divine.
+
+There may be some trace of irony in this curious passage, which forms
+the concluding portion of the Dialogue. But Plato certainly does not
+mean to intimate that the supernatural or divine is the true basis of
+human life. To him knowledge, if only attainable in this world, is of
+all things the most divine. Yet, like other philosophers, he is willing
+to admit that 'probability is the guide of life (Butler's Analogy.);'
+and he is at the same time desirous of contrasting the wisdom which
+governs the world with a higher wisdom. There are many instincts,
+judgments, and anticipations of the human mind which cannot be reduced
+to rule, and of which the grounds cannot always be given in words. A
+person may have some skill or latent experience which he is able to use
+himself and is yet unable to teach others, because he has no principles,
+and is incapable of collecting or arranging his ideas. He has practice,
+but not theory; art, but not science. This is a true fact of psychology,
+which is recognized by Plato in this passage. But he is far from
+saying, as some have imagined, that inspiration or divine grace is to be
+regarded as higher than knowledge. He would not have preferred the poet
+or man of action to the philosopher, or the virtue of custom to the
+virtue based upon ideas.
+
+Also here, as in the Ion and Phaedrus, Plato appears to acknowledge an
+unreasoning element in the higher nature of man. The philosopher only
+has knowledge, and yet the statesman and the poet are inspired. There
+may be a sort of irony in regarding in this way the gifts of genius. But
+there is no reason to suppose that he is deriding them, any more than he
+is deriding the phenomena of love or of enthusiasm in the Symposium, or
+of oracles in the Apology, or of divine intimations when he is speaking
+of the daemonium of Socrates. He recognizes the lower form of right
+opinion, as well as the higher one of science, in the spirit of one who
+desires to include in his philosophy every aspect of human life; just
+as he recognizes the existence of popular opinion as a fact, and the
+Sophists as the expression of it.
+
+This Dialogue contains the first intimation of the doctrine of
+reminiscence and of the immortality of the soul. The proof is very
+slight, even slighter than in the Phaedo and Republic. Because men had
+abstract ideas in a previous state, they must have always had them, and
+their souls therefore must have always existed. For they must always
+have been either men or not men. The fallacy of the latter words is
+transparent. And Socrates himself appears to be conscious of their
+weakness; for he adds immediately afterwards, 'I have said some things
+of which I am not altogether confident.' (Compare Phaedo.) It may be
+observed, however, that the fanciful notion of pre-existence is combined
+with a true but partial view of the origin and unity of knowledge,
+and of the association of ideas. Knowledge is prior to any particular
+knowledge, and exists not in the previous state of the individual, but
+of the race. It is potential, not actual, and can only be appropriated
+by strenuous exertion.
+
+The idealism of Plato is here presented in a less developed form than in
+the Phaedo and Phaedrus. Nothing is said of the pre-existence of ideas
+of justice, temperance, and the like. Nor is Socrates positive of
+anything but the duty of enquiry. The doctrine of reminiscence too is
+explained more in accordance with fact and experience as arising out of
+the affinities of nature (ate tes thuseos oles suggenous ouses). Modern
+philosophy says that all things in nature are dependent on one another;
+the ancient philosopher had the same truth latent in his mind when
+he affirmed that out of one thing all the rest may be recovered. The
+subjective was converted by him into an objective; the mental phenomenon
+of the association of ideas (compare Phaedo) became a real chain of
+existences. The germs of two valuable principles of education may also
+be gathered from the 'words of priests and priestesses:' (1) that
+true knowledge is a knowledge of causes (compare Aristotle's theory of
+episteme); and (2) that the process of learning consists not in what is
+brought to the learner, but in what is drawn out of him.
+
+Some lesser points of the dialogue may be noted, such as (1) the
+acute observation that Meno prefers the familiar definition, which is
+embellished with poetical language, to the better and truer one; or (2)
+the shrewd reflection, which may admit of an application to modern
+as well as to ancient teachers, that the Sophists having made large
+fortunes; this must surely be a criterion of their powers of teaching,
+for that no man could get a living by shoemaking who was not a good
+shoemaker; or (3) the remark conveyed, almost in a word, that the verbal
+sceptic is saved the labour of thought and enquiry (ouden dei to toiouto
+zeteseos). Characteristic also of the temper of the Socratic enquiry
+is, (4) the proposal to discuss the teachableness of virtue under
+an hypothesis, after the manner of the mathematicians; and (5) the
+repetition of the favourite doctrine which occurs so frequently in
+the earlier and more Socratic Dialogues, and gives a colour to all
+of them--that mankind only desire evil through ignorance; (6) the
+experiment of eliciting from the slave-boy the mathematical truth which
+is latent in him, and (7) the remark that he is all the better for
+knowing his ignorance.
+
+The character of Meno, like that of Critias, has no relation to the
+actual circumstances of his life. Plato is silent about his treachery
+to the ten thousand Greeks, which Xenophon has recorded, as he is also
+silent about the crimes of Critias. He is a Thessalian Alcibiades,
+rich and luxurious--a spoilt child of fortune, and is described as the
+hereditary friend of the great king. Like Alcibiades he is inspired
+with an ardent desire of knowledge, and is equally willing to learn of
+Socrates and of the Sophists. He may be regarded as standing in the same
+relation to Gorgias as Hippocrates in the Protagoras to the other
+great Sophist. He is the sophisticated youth on whom Socrates tries his
+cross-examining powers, just as in the Charmides, the Lysis, and
+the Euthydemus, ingenuous boyhood is made the subject of a similar
+experiment. He is treated by Socrates in a half-playful manner suited to
+his character; at the same time he appears not quite to understand the
+process to which he is being subjected. For he is exhibited as ignorant
+of the very elements of dialectics, in which the Sophists have failed
+to instruct their disciple. His definition of virtue as 'the power and
+desire of attaining things honourable,' like the first definition
+of justice in the Republic, is taken from a poet. His answers have a
+sophistical ring, and at the same time show the sophistical incapacity
+to grasp a general notion.
+
+Anytus is the type of the narrow-minded man of the world, who is
+indignant at innovation, and equally detests the popular teacher and
+the true philosopher. He seems, like Aristophanes, to regard the new
+opinions, whether of Socrates or the Sophists, as fatal to Athenian
+greatness. He is of the same class as Callicles in the Gorgias, but of
+a different variety; the immoral and sophistical doctrines of Callicles
+are not attributed to him. The moderation with which he is described is
+remarkable, if he be the accuser of Socrates, as is apparently indicated
+by his parting words. Perhaps Plato may have been desirous of showing
+that the accusation of Socrates was not to be attributed to badness or
+malevolence, but rather to a tendency in men's minds. Or he may have
+been regardless of the historical truth of the characters of his
+dialogue, as in the case of Meno and Critias. Like Chaerephon (Apol.)
+the real Anytus was a democrat, and had joined Thrasybulus in the
+conflict with the thirty.
+
+The Protagoras arrived at a sort of hypothetical conclusion, that if
+'virtue is knowledge, it can be taught.' In the Euthydemus, Socrates
+himself offered an example of the manner in which the true teacher
+may draw out the mind of youth; this was in contrast to the quibbling
+follies of the Sophists. In the Meno the subject is more developed; the
+foundations of the enquiry are laid deeper, and the nature of knowledge
+is more distinctly explained. There is a progression by antagonism of
+two opposite aspects of philosophy. But at the moment when we approach
+nearest, the truth doubles upon us and passes out of our reach. We seem
+to find that the ideal of knowledge is irreconcilable with experience.
+In human life there is indeed the profession of knowledge, but right
+opinion is our actual guide. There is another sort of progress from the
+general notions of Socrates, who asked simply, 'what is friendship?'
+'what is temperance?' 'what is courage?' as in the Lysis, Charmides,
+Laches, to the transcendentalism of Plato, who, in the second stage of
+his philosophy, sought to find the nature of knowledge in a prior and
+future state of existence.
+
+The difficulty in framing general notions which has appeared in this and
+in all the previous Dialogues recurs in the Gorgias and Theaetetus as
+well as in the Republic. In the Gorgias too the statesmen reappear, but
+in stronger opposition to the philosopher. They are no longer allowed to
+have a divine insight, but, though acknowledged to have been clever men
+and good speakers, are denounced as 'blind leaders of the blind.' The
+doctrine of the immortality of the soul is also carried further, being
+made the foundation not only of a theory of knowledge, but of a doctrine
+of rewards and punishments. In the Republic the relation of knowledge
+to virtue is described in a manner more consistent with modern
+distinctions. The existence of the virtues without the possession
+of knowledge in the higher or philosophical sense is admitted to be
+possible. Right opinion is again introduced in the Theaetetus as
+an account of knowledge, but is rejected on the ground that it is
+irrational (as here, because it is not bound by the tie of the cause),
+and also because the conception of false opinion is given up as
+hopeless. The doctrines of Plato are necessarily different at different
+times of his life, as new distinctions are realized, or new stages of
+thought attained by him. We are not therefore justified, in order to
+take away the appearance of inconsistency, in attributing to him hidden
+meanings or remote allusions.
+
+There are no external criteria by which we can determine the date of the
+Meno. There is no reason to suppose that any of the Dialogues of Plato
+were written before the death of Socrates; the Meno, which appears to be
+one of the earliest of them, is proved to have been of a later date by
+the allusion of Anytus.
+
+We cannot argue that Plato was more likely to have written, as he has
+done, of Meno before than after his miserable death; for we have already
+seen, in the examples of Charmides and Critias, that the characters in
+Plato are very far from resembling the same characters in history. The
+repulsive picture which is given of him in the Anabasis of Xenophon,
+where he also appears as the friend of Aristippus 'and a fair youth
+having lovers,' has no other trait of likeness to the Meno of Plato.
+
+The place of the Meno in the series is doubtfully indicated by internal
+evidence. The main character of the Dialogue is Socrates; but to the
+'general definitions' of Socrates is added the Platonic doctrine of
+reminiscence. The problems of virtue and knowledge have been discussed
+in the Lysis, Laches, Charmides, and Protagoras; the puzzle about
+knowing and learning has already appeared in the Euthydemus. The
+doctrines of immortality and pre-existence are carried further in the
+Phaedrus and Phaedo; the distinction between opinion and knowledge is
+more fully developed in the Theaetetus. The lessons of Prodicus, whom he
+facetiously calls his master, are still running in the mind of Socrates.
+Unlike the later Platonic Dialogues, the Meno arrives at no conclusion.
+Hence we are led to place the Dialogue at some point of time later than
+the Protagoras, and earlier than the Phaedrus and Gorgias. The place
+which is assigned to it in this work is due mainly to the desire to
+bring together in a single volume all the Dialogues which contain
+allusions to the trial and death of Socrates.
+
+
+*****
+
+
+
+
+ON THE IDEAS OF PLATO.
+
+Plato's doctrine of ideas has attained an imaginary clearness and
+definiteness which is not to be found in his own writings. The popular
+account of them is partly derived from one or two passages in his
+Dialogues interpreted without regard to their poetical environment. It
+is due also to the misunderstanding of him by the Aristotelian school;
+and the erroneous notion has been further narrowed and has become fixed
+by the realism of the schoolmen. This popular view of the Platonic ideas
+may be summed up in some such formula as the following: 'Truth consists
+not in particulars, but in universals, which have a place in the mind of
+God, or in some far-off heaven. These were revealed to men in a former
+state of existence, and are recovered by reminiscence (anamnesis) or
+association from sensible things. The sensible things are not
+realities, but shadows only, in relation to the truth.' These unmeaning
+propositions are hardly suspected to be a caricature of a great theory
+of knowledge, which Plato in various ways and under many figures of
+speech is seeking to unfold. Poetry has been converted into dogma; and
+it is not remarked that the Platonic ideas are to be found only in about
+a third of Plato's writings and are not confined to him. The forms which
+they assume are numerous, and if taken literally, inconsistent with one
+another. At one time we are in the clouds of mythology, at another among
+the abstractions of mathematics or metaphysics; we pass imperceptibly
+from one to the other. Reason and fancy are mingled in the same
+passage. The ideas are sometimes described as many, coextensive with
+the universals of sense and also with the first principles of ethics; or
+again they are absorbed into the single idea of good, and subordinated
+to it. They are not more certain than facts, but they are equally
+certain (Phaedo). They are both personal and impersonal. They are
+abstract terms: they are also the causes of things; and they are even
+transformed into the demons or spirits by whose help God made the world.
+And the idea of good (Republic) may without violence be converted into
+the Supreme Being, who 'because He was good' created all things (Tim.).
+
+It would be a mistake to try and reconcile these differing modes of
+thought. They are not to be regarded seriously as having a distinct
+meaning. They are parables, prophecies, myths, symbols, revelations,
+aspirations after an unknown world. They derive their origin from a deep
+religious and contemplative feeling, and also from an observation of
+curious mental phenomena. They gather up the elements of the previous
+philosophies, which they put together in a new form. Their great
+diversity shows the tentative character of early endeavours to think.
+They have not yet settled down into a single system. Plato uses them,
+though he also criticises them; he acknowledges that both he and others
+are always talking about them, especially about the Idea of Good; and
+that they are not peculiar to himself (Phaedo; Republic; Soph.). But in
+his later writings he seems to have laid aside the old forms of them.
+As he proceeds he makes for himself new modes of expression more akin to
+the Aristotelian logic.
+
+Yet amid all these varieties and incongruities, there is a common
+meaning or spirit which pervades his writings, both those in which he
+treats of the ideas and those in which he is silent about them. This is
+the spirit of idealism, which in the history of philosophy has had many
+names and taken many forms, and has in a measure influenced those
+who seemed to be most averse to it. It has often been charged with
+inconsistency and fancifulness, and yet has had an elevating effect on
+human nature, and has exercised a wonderful charm and interest over
+a few spirits who have been lost in the thought of it. It has been
+banished again and again, but has always returned. It has attempted to
+leave the earth and soar heavenwards, but soon has found that only
+in experience could any solid foundation of knowledge be laid. It has
+degenerated into pantheism, but has again emerged. No other knowledge
+has given an equal stimulus to the mind. It is the science of sciences,
+which are also ideas, and under either aspect require to be defined.
+They can only be thought of in due proportion when conceived in relation
+to one another. They are the glasses through which the kingdoms of
+science are seen, but at a distance. All the greatest minds, except when
+living in an age of reaction against them, have unconsciously fallen
+under their power.
+
+The account of the Platonic ideas in the Meno is the simplest and
+clearest, and we shall best illustrate their nature by giving this first
+and then comparing the manner in which they are described elsewhere,
+e.g. in the Phaedrus, Phaedo, Republic; to which may be added the
+criticism of them in the Parmenides, the personal form which is
+attributed to them in the Timaeus, the logical character which they
+assume in the Sophist and Philebus, and the allusion to them in the
+Laws. In the Cratylus they dawn upon him with the freshness of a
+newly-discovered thought.
+
+The Meno goes back to a former state of existence, in which men did and
+suffered good and evil, and received the reward or punishment of them
+until their sin was purged away and they were allowed to return to
+earth. This is a tradition of the olden time, to which priests and poets
+bear witness. The souls of men returning to earth bring back a latent
+memory of ideas, which were known to them in a former state. The
+recollection is awakened into life and consciousness by the sight of the
+things which resemble them on earth. The soul evidently possesses such
+innate ideas before she has had time to acquire them. This is proved by
+an experiment tried on one of Meno's slaves, from whom Socrates elicits
+truths of arithmetic and geometry, which he had never learned in this
+world. He must therefore have brought them with him from another.
+
+The notion of a previous state of existence is found in the verses
+of Empedocles and in the fragments of Heracleitus. It was the natural
+answer to two questions, 'Whence came the soul? What is the origin of
+evil?' and prevailed far and wide in the east. It found its way into
+Hellas probably through the medium of Orphic and Pythagorean rites and
+mysteries. It was easier to think of a former than of a future life,
+because such a life has really existed for the race though not for the
+individual, and all men come into the world, if not 'trailing clouds of
+glory,' at any rate able to enter into the inheritance of the past. In
+the Phaedrus, as well as in the Meno, it is this former rather than a
+future life on which Plato is disposed to dwell. There the Gods, and men
+following in their train, go forth to contemplate the heavens, and are
+borne round in the revolutions of them. There they see the divine forms
+of justice, temperance, and the like, in their unchangeable beauty, but
+not without an effort more than human. The soul of man is likened to
+a charioteer and two steeds, one mortal, the other immortal. The
+charioteer and the mortal steed are in fierce conflict; at length the
+animal principle is finally overpowered, though not extinguished, by the
+combined energies of the passionate and rational elements. This is one
+of those passages in Plato which, partaking both of a philosophical
+and poetical character, is necessarily indistinct and inconsistent. The
+magnificent figure under which the nature of the soul is described has
+not much to do with the popular doctrine of the ideas. Yet there is one
+little trait in the description which shows that they are present to
+Plato's mind, namely, the remark that the soul, which had seen truths
+in the form of the universal, cannot again return to the nature of an
+animal.
+
+In the Phaedo, as in the Meno, the origin of ideas is sought for in a
+previous state of existence. There was no time when they could have been
+acquired in this life, and therefore they must have been recovered from
+another. The process of recovery is no other than the ordinary law of
+association, by which in daily life the sight of one thing or person
+recalls another to our minds, and by which in scientific enquiry from
+any part of knowledge we may be led on to infer the whole. It is also
+argued that ideas, or rather ideals, must be derived from a previous
+state of existence because they are more perfect than the sensible forms
+of them which are given by experience. But in the Phaedo the doctrine
+of ideas is subordinate to the proof of the immortality of the soul.
+'If the soul existed in a previous state, then it will exist in a future
+state, for a law of alternation pervades all things.' And, 'If the ideas
+exist, then the soul exists; if not, not.' It is to be observed, both
+in the Meno and the Phaedo, that Socrates expresses himself with
+diffidence. He speaks in the Phaedo of the words with which he has
+comforted himself and his friends, and will not be too confident that
+the description which he has given of the soul and her mansions is
+exactly true, but he 'ventures to think that something of the kind is
+true.' And in the Meno, after dwelling upon the immortality of the
+soul, he adds, 'Of some things which I have said I am not altogether
+confident' (compare Apology; Gorgias). From this class of uncertainties
+he exempts the difference between truth and appearance, of which he is
+absolutely convinced.
+
+In the Republic the ideas are spoken of in two ways, which though not
+contradictory are different. In the tenth book they are represented as
+the genera or general ideas under which individuals having a common name
+are contained. For example, there is the bed which the carpenter makes,
+the picture of the bed which is drawn by the painter, the bed existing
+in nature of which God is the author. Of the latter all visible beds
+are only the shadows or reflections. This and similar illustrations or
+explanations are put forth, not for their own sake, or as an exposition
+of Plato's theory of ideas, but with a view of showing that poetry and
+the mimetic arts are concerned with an inferior part of the soul and a
+lower kind of knowledge. On the other hand, in the 6th and 7th books
+of the Republic we reach the highest and most perfect conception, which
+Plato is able to attain, of the nature of knowledge. The ideas are now
+finally seen to be one as well as many, causes as well as ideas, and to
+have a unity which is the idea of good and the cause of all the rest.
+They seem, however, to have lost their first aspect of universals under
+which individuals are contained, and to have been converted into forms
+of another kind, which are inconsistently regarded from the one side as
+images or ideals of justice, temperance, holiness and the like; from the
+other as hypotheses, or mathematical truths or principles.
+
+In the Timaeus, which in the series of Plato's works immediately follows
+the Republic, though probably written some time afterwards, no mention
+occurs of the doctrine of ideas. Geometrical forms and arithmetical
+ratios furnish the laws according to which the world is created. But
+though the conception of the ideas as genera or species is forgotten or
+laid aside, the distinction of the visible and intellectual is as
+firmly maintained as ever. The IDEA of good likewise disappears and is
+superseded by the conception of a personal God, who works according to
+a final cause or principle of goodness which he himself is. No doubt is
+expressed by Plato, either in the Timaeus or in any other dialogue, of
+the truths which he conceives to be the first and highest. It is not the
+existence of God or the idea of good which he approaches in a tentative
+or hesitating manner, but the investigations of physiology. These he
+regards, not seriously, as a part of philosophy, but as an innocent
+recreation (Tim.).
+
+Passing on to the Parmenides, we find in that dialogue not an exposition
+or defence of the doctrine of ideas, but an assault upon them, which is
+put into the mouth of the veteran Parmenides, and might be ascribed to
+Aristotle himself, or to one of his disciples. The doctrine which is
+assailed takes two or three forms, but fails in any of them to escape
+the dialectical difficulties which are urged against it. It is admitted
+that there are ideas of all things, but the manner in which individuals
+partake of them, whether of the whole or of the part, and in which
+they become like them, or how ideas can be either within or without
+the sphere of human knowledge, or how the human and divine can have any
+relation to each other, is held to be incapable of explanation. And
+yet, if there are no universal ideas, what becomes of philosophy?
+(Parmenides.) In the Sophist the theory of ideas is spoken of as a
+doctrine held not by Plato, but by another sect of philosophers, called
+'the Friends of Ideas,' probably the Megarians, who were very distinct
+from him, if not opposed to him (Sophist). Nor in what may be termed
+Plato's abridgement of the history of philosophy (Soph.), is any mention
+made such as we find in the first book of Aristotle's Metaphysics,
+of the derivation of such a theory or of any part of it from the
+Pythagoreans, the Eleatics, the Heracleiteans, or even from Socrates. In
+the Philebus, probably one of the latest of the Platonic Dialogues,
+the conception of a personal or semi-personal deity expressed under the
+figure of mind, the king of all, who is also the cause, is retained. The
+one and many of the Phaedrus and Theaetetus is still working in the mind
+of Plato, and the correlation of ideas, not of 'all with all,' but of
+'some with some,' is asserted and explained. But they are spoken of in
+a different manner, and are not supposed to be recovered from a former
+state of existence. The metaphysical conception of truth passes into a
+psychological one, which is continued in the Laws, and is the final
+form of the Platonic philosophy, so far as can be gathered from his own
+writings (see especially Laws). In the Laws he harps once more on the
+old string, and returns to general notions:--these he acknowledges to
+be many, and yet he insists that they are also one. The guardian must be
+made to recognize the truth, for which he has contended long ago in the
+Protagoras, that the virtues are four, but they are also in some sense
+one (Laws; compare Protagoras).
+
+So various, and if regarded on the surface only, inconsistent, are the
+statements of Plato respecting the doctrine of ideas. If we attempted to
+harmonize or to combine them, we should make out of them, not a system,
+but the caricature of a system. They are the ever-varying expression
+of Plato's Idealism. The terms used in them are in their substance and
+general meaning the same, although they seem to be different. They
+pass from the subject to the object, from earth (diesseits) to
+heaven (jenseits) without regard to the gulf which later theology and
+philosophy have made between them. They are also intended to supplement
+or explain each other. They relate to a subject of which Plato himself
+would have said that 'he was not confident of the precise form of his
+own statements, but was strong in the belief that something of the kind
+was true.' It is the spirit, not the letter, in which they agree--the
+spirit which places the divine above the human, the spiritual above the
+material, the one above the many, the mind before the body.
+
+The stream of ancient philosophy in the Alexandrian and Roman times
+widens into a lake or sea, and then disappears underground to reappear
+after many ages in a distant land. It begins to flow again under new
+conditions, at first confined between high and narrow banks, but finally
+spreading over the continent of Europe. It is and is not the same with
+ancient philosophy. There is a great deal in modern philosophy which is
+inspired by ancient. There is much in ancient philosophy which was 'born
+out of due time; and before men were capable of understanding it. To the
+fathers of modern philosophy, their own thoughts appeared to be new
+and original, but they carried with them an echo or shadow of the past,
+coming back by recollection from an elder world. Of this the enquirers
+of the seventeenth century, who to themselves appeared to be working out
+independently the enquiry into all truth, were unconscious. They stood
+in a new relation to theology and natural philosophy, and for a time
+maintained towards both an attitude of reserve and separation. Yet the
+similarities between modern and ancient thought are greater far than the
+differences. All philosophy, even that part of it which is said to be
+based upon experience, is really ideal; and ideas are not only derived
+from facts, but they are also prior to them and extend far beyond them,
+just as the mind is prior to the senses.
+
+Early Greek speculation culminates in the ideas of Plato, or rather in
+the single idea of good. His followers, and perhaps he himself, having
+arrived at this elevation, instead of going forwards went backwards from
+philosophy to psychology, from ideas to numbers. But what we perceive to
+be the real meaning of them, an explanation of the nature and origin
+of knowledge, will always continue to be one of the first problems of
+philosophy.
+
+Plato also left behind him a most potent instrument, the forms of
+logic--arms ready for use, but not yet taken out of their armoury. They
+were the late birth of the early Greek philosophy, and were the only
+part of it which has had an uninterrupted hold on the mind of Europe.
+Philosophies come and go; but the detection of fallacies, the framing
+of definitions, the invention of methods still continue to be the main
+elements of the reasoning process.
+
+Modern philosophy, like ancient, begins with very simple conceptions.
+It is almost wholly a reflection on self. It might be described as
+a quickening into life of old words and notions latent in the
+semi-barbarous Latin, and putting a new meaning into them. Unlike
+ancient philosophy, it has been unaffected by impressions derived from
+outward nature: it arose within the limits of the mind itself. From the
+time of Descartes to Hume and Kant it has had little or nothing to do
+with facts of science. On the other hand, the ancient and mediaeval
+logic retained a continuous influence over it, and a form like that
+of mathematics was easily impressed upon it; the principle of ancient
+philosophy which is most apparent in it is scepticism; we must doubt
+nearly every traditional or received notion, that we may hold fast one
+or two. The being of God in a personal or impersonal form was a mental
+necessity to the first thinkers of modern times: from this alone all
+other ideas could be deduced. There had been an obscure presentiment of
+'cognito, ergo sum' more than 2000 years previously. The Eleatic notion
+that being and thought were the same was revived in a new form by
+Descartes. But now it gave birth to consciousness and self-reflection:
+it awakened the 'ego' in human nature. The mind naked and abstract has
+no other certainty but the conviction of its own existence. 'I think,
+therefore I am;' and this thought is God thinking in me, who has also
+communicated to the reason of man his own attributes of thought and
+extension--these are truly imparted to him because God is true (compare
+Republic). It has been often remarked that Descartes, having begun by
+dismissing all presuppositions, introduces several: he passes almost
+at once from scepticism to dogmatism. It is more important for the
+illustration of Plato to observe that he, like Plato, insists that God
+is true and incapable of deception (Republic)--that he proceeds from
+general ideas, that many elements of mathematics may be found in him. A
+certain influence of mathematics both on the form and substance of their
+philosophy is discernible in both of them. After making the greatest
+opposition between thought and extension, Descartes, like Plato,
+supposes them to be reunited for a time, not in their own nature but by
+a special divine act (compare Phaedrus), and he also supposes all
+the parts of the human body to meet in the pineal gland, that alone
+affording a principle of unity in the material frame of man. It is
+characteristic of the first period of modern philosophy, that having
+begun (like the Presocratics) with a few general notions, Descartes
+first falls absolutely under their influence, and then quickly discards
+them. At the same time he is less able to observe facts, because they
+are too much magnified by the glasses through which they are seen.
+The common logic says 'the greater the extension, the less the
+comprehension,' and we may put the same thought in another way and say
+of abstract or general ideas, that the greater the abstraction of them,
+the less are they capable of being applied to particular and concrete
+natures.
+
+Not very different from Descartes in his relation to ancient philosophy
+is his successor Spinoza, who lived in the following generation. The
+system of Spinoza is less personal and also less dualistic than that
+of Descartes. In this respect the difference between them is like that
+between Xenophanes and Parmenides. The teaching of Spinoza might be
+described generally as the Jewish religion reduced to an abstraction
+and taking the form of the Eleatic philosophy. Like Parmenides, he is
+overpowered and intoxicated with the idea of Being or God. The greatness
+of both philosophies consists in the immensity of a thought which
+excludes all other thoughts; their weakness is the necessary separation
+of this thought from actual existence and from practical life. In
+neither of them is there any clear opposition between the inward and
+outward world. The substance of Spinoza has two attributes, which alone
+are cognizable by man, thought and extension; these are in extreme
+opposition to one another, and also in inseparable identity. They may be
+regarded as the two aspects or expressions under which God or substance
+is unfolded to man. Here a step is made beyond the limits of the Eleatic
+philosophy. The famous theorem of Spinoza, 'Omnis determinatio est
+negatio,' is already contained in the 'negation is relation' of Plato's
+Sophist. The grand description of the philosopher in Republic VI, as the
+spectator of all time and all existence, may be paralleled with
+another famous expression of Spinoza, 'Contemplatio rerum sub specie
+eternitatis.' According to Spinoza finite objects are unreal, for they
+are conditioned by what is alien to them, and by one another. Human
+beings are included in the number of them. Hence there is no reality
+in human action and no place for right and wrong. Individuality is
+accident. The boasted freedom of the will is only a consciousness of
+necessity. Truth, he says, is the direction of the reason towards the
+infinite, in which all things repose; and herein lies the secret of
+man's well-being. In the exaltation of the reason or intellect, in the
+denial of the voluntariness of evil (Timaeus; Laws) Spinoza approaches
+nearer to Plato than in his conception of an infinite substance. As
+Socrates said that virtue is knowledge, so Spinoza would have maintained
+that knowledge alone is good, and what contributes to knowledge useful.
+Both are equally far from any real experience or observation of nature.
+And the same difficulty is found in both when we seek to apply their
+ideas to life and practice. There is a gulf fixed between the infinite
+substance and finite objects or individuals of Spinoza, just as there is
+between the ideas of Plato and the world of sense.
+
+Removed from Spinoza by less than a generation is the philosopher
+Leibnitz, who after deepening and intensifying the opposition between
+mind and matter, reunites them by his preconcerted harmony (compare
+again Phaedrus). To him all the particles of matter are living beings
+which reflect on one another, and in the least of them the whole is
+contained. Here we catch a reminiscence both of the omoiomere, or
+similar particles of Anaxagoras, and of the world-animal of the Timaeus.
+
+In Bacon and Locke we have another development in which the mind of
+man is supposed to receive knowledge by a new method and to work by
+observation and experience. But we may remark that it is the idea
+of experience, rather than experience itself, with which the mind is
+filled. It is a symbol of knowledge rather than the reality which is
+vouchsafed to us. The Organon of Bacon is not much nearer to actual
+facts than the Organon of Aristotle or the Platonic idea of good. Many
+of the old rags and ribbons which defaced the garment of philosophy have
+been stripped off, but some of them still adhere. A crude conception of
+the ideas of Plato survives in the 'forms' of Bacon. And on the other
+hand, there are many passages of Plato in which the importance of the
+investigation of facts is as much insisted upon as by Bacon. Both are
+almost equally superior to the illusions of language, and are constantly
+crying out against them, as against other idols.
+
+Locke cannot be truly regarded as the author of sensationalism any more
+than of idealism. His system is based upon experience, but with him
+experience includes reflection as well as sense. His analysis and
+construction of ideas has no foundation in fact; it is only the
+dialectic of the mind 'talking to herself.' The philosophy of Berkeley
+is but the transposition of two words. For objects of sense he would
+substitute sensations. He imagines himself to have changed the relation
+of the human mind towards God and nature; they remain the same as
+before, though he has drawn the imaginary line by which they are divided
+at a different point. He has annihilated the outward world, but it
+instantly reappears governed by the same laws and described under the
+same names.
+
+A like remark applies to David Hume, of whose philosophy the central
+principle is the denial of the relation of cause and effect. He would
+deprive men of a familiar term which they can ill afford to lose; but
+he seems not to have observed that this alteration is merely verbal and
+does not in any degree affect the nature of things. Still less did he
+remark that he was arguing from the necessary imperfection of language
+against the most certain facts. And here, again, we may find a parallel
+with the ancients. He goes beyond facts in his scepticism, as they did
+in their idealism. Like the ancient Sophists, he relegates the more
+important principles of ethics to custom and probability. But crude and
+unmeaning as this philosophy is, it exercised a great influence on his
+successors, not unlike that which Locke exercised upon Berkeley and
+Berkeley upon Hume himself. All three were both sceptical and ideal in
+almost equal degrees. Neither they nor their predecessors had any true
+conception of language or of the history of philosophy. Hume's
+paradox has been forgotten by the world, and did not any more than the
+scepticism of the ancients require to be seriously refuted. Like some
+other philosophical paradoxes, it would have been better left to die
+out. It certainly could not be refuted by a philosophy such as Kant's,
+in which, no less than in the previously mentioned systems, the history
+of the human mind and the nature of language are almost wholly ignored,
+and the certainty of objective knowledge is transferred to the subject;
+while absolute truth is reduced to a figment, more abstract and narrow
+than Plato's ideas, of 'thing in itself,' to which, if we reason
+strictly, no predicate can be applied.
+
+The question which Plato has raised respecting the origin and nature of
+ideas belongs to the infancy of philosophy; in modern times it would no
+longer be asked. Their origin is only their history, so far as we know
+it; there can be no other. We may trace them in language, in philosophy,
+in mythology, in poetry, but we cannot argue a priori about them. We may
+attempt to shake them off, but they are always returning, and in every
+sphere of science and human action are tending to go beyond facts. They
+are thought to be innate, because they have been familiar to us all our
+lives, and we can no longer dismiss them from our mind. Many of them
+express relations of terms to which nothing exactly or nothing at all in
+rerum natura corresponds. We are not such free agents in the use of
+them as we sometimes imagine. Fixed ideas have taken the most complete
+possession of some thinkers who have been most determined to renounce
+them, and have been vehemently affirmed when they could be least
+explained and were incapable of proof. The world has often been led away
+by a word to which no distinct meaning could be attached. Abstractions
+such as 'authority,' 'equality,' 'utility,' 'liberty,' 'pleasure,'
+'experience,' 'consciousness,' 'chance,' 'substance,' 'matter,' 'atom,'
+and a heap of other metaphysical and theological terms, are the source
+of quite as much error and illusion and have as little relation
+to actual facts as the ideas of Plato. Few students of theology or
+philosophy have sufficiently reflected how quickly the bloom of a
+philosophy passes away; or how hard it is for one age to understand the
+writings of another; or how nice a judgment is required of those who are
+seeking to express the philosophy of one age in the terms of another.
+The 'eternal truths' of which metaphysicians speak have hardly ever
+lasted more than a generation. In our own day schools or systems of
+philosophy which have once been famous have died before the founders of
+them. We are still, as in Plato's age, groping about for a new method
+more comprehensive than any of those which now prevail; and also more
+permanent. And we seem to see at a distance the promise of such a
+method, which can hardly be any other than the method of idealized
+experience, having roots which strike far down into the history of
+philosophy. It is a method which does not divorce the present from the
+past, or the part from the whole, or the abstract from the concrete,
+or theory from fact, or the divine from the human, or one science
+from another, but labours to connect them. Along such a road we have
+proceeded a few steps, sufficient, perhaps, to make us reflect on the
+want of method which prevails in our own day. In another age, all the
+branches of knowledge, whether relating to God or man or nature, will
+become the knowledge of 'the revelation of a single science' (Symp.),
+and all things, like the stars in heaven, will shed their light upon one
+another.
+
+
+
+
+MENO
+
+
+PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE: Meno, Socrates, A Slave of Meno (Boy), Anytus.
+
+
+MENO: Can you tell me, Socrates, whether virtue is acquired by teaching
+or by practice; or if neither by teaching nor by practice, then whether
+it comes to man by nature, or in what other way?
+
+SOCRATES: O Meno, there was a time when the Thessalians were famous
+among the other Hellenes only for their riches and their riding; but
+now, if I am not mistaken, they are equally famous for their wisdom,
+especially at Larisa, which is the native city of your friend
+Aristippus. And this is Gorgias' doing; for when he came there, the
+flower of the Aleuadae, among them your admirer Aristippus, and the
+other chiefs of the Thessalians, fell in love with his wisdom. And he
+has taught you the habit of answering questions in a grand and bold
+style, which becomes those who know, and is the style in which he
+himself answers all comers; and any Hellene who likes may ask him
+anything. How different is our lot! my dear Meno. Here at Athens there
+is a dearth of the commodity, and all wisdom seems to have emigrated
+from us to you. I am certain that if you were to ask any Athenian
+whether virtue was natural or acquired, he would laugh in your face,
+and say: 'Stranger, you have far too good an opinion of me, if you think
+that I can answer your question. For I literally do not know what virtue
+is, and much less whether it is acquired by teaching or not.' And I
+myself, Meno, living as I do in this region of poverty, am as poor as
+the rest of the world; and I confess with shame that I know literally
+nothing about virtue; and when I do not know the 'quid' of anything how
+can I know the 'quale'? How, if I knew nothing at all of Meno, could
+I tell if he was fair, or the opposite of fair; rich and noble, or the
+reverse of rich and noble? Do you think that I could?
+
+MENO: No, indeed. But are you in earnest, Socrates, in saying that you
+do not know what virtue is? And am I to carry back this report of you to
+Thessaly?
+
+SOCRATES: Not only that, my dear boy, but you may say further that I
+have never known of any one else who did, in my judgment.
+
+MENO: Then you have never met Gorgias when he was at Athens?
+
+SOCRATES: Yes, I have.
+
+MENO: And did you not think that he knew?
+
+SOCRATES: I have not a good memory, Meno, and therefore I cannot now
+tell what I thought of him at the time. And I dare say that he did know,
+and that you know what he said: please, therefore, to remind me of what
+he said; or, if you would rather, tell me your own view; for I suspect
+that you and he think much alike.
+
+MENO: Very true.
+
+SOCRATES: Then as he is not here, never mind him, and do you tell me:
+By the gods, Meno, be generous, and tell me what you say that virtue is;
+for I shall be truly delighted to find that I have been mistaken, and
+that you and Gorgias do really have this knowledge; although I have been
+just saying that I have never found anybody who had.
+
+MENO: There will be no difficulty, Socrates, in answering your question.
+Let us take first the virtue of a man--he should know how to administer
+the state, and in the administration of it to benefit his friends
+and harm his enemies; and he must also be careful not to suffer harm
+himself. A woman's virtue, if you wish to know about that, may also
+be easily described: her duty is to order her house, and keep what is
+indoors, and obey her husband. Every age, every condition of life, young
+or old, male or female, bond or free, has a different virtue: there are
+virtues numberless, and no lack of definitions of them; for virtue is
+relative to the actions and ages of each of us in all that we do. And
+the same may be said of vice, Socrates (Compare Arist. Pol.).
+
+SOCRATES: How fortunate I am, Meno! When I ask you for one virtue, you
+present me with a swarm of them (Compare Theaet.), which are in your
+keeping. Suppose that I carry on the figure of the swarm, and ask of
+you, What is the nature of the bee? and you answer that there are many
+kinds of bees, and I reply: But do bees differ as bees, because there
+are many and different kinds of them; or are they not rather to be
+distinguished by some other quality, as for example beauty, size, or
+shape? How would you answer me?
+
+MENO: I should answer that bees do not differ from one another, as bees.
+
+SOCRATES: And if I went on to say: That is what I desire to know, Meno;
+tell me what is the quality in which they do not differ, but are all
+alike;--would you be able to answer?
+
+MENO: I should.
+
+SOCRATES: And so of the virtues, however many and different they may be,
+they have all a common nature which makes them virtues; and on this he
+who would answer the question, 'What is virtue?' would do well to have
+his eye fixed: Do you understand?
+
+MENO: I am beginning to understand; but I do not as yet take hold of the
+question as I could wish.
+
+SOCRATES: When you say, Meno, that there is one virtue of a man, another
+of a woman, another of a child, and so on, does this apply only to
+virtue, or would you say the same of health, and size, and strength? Or
+is the nature of health always the same, whether in man or woman?
+
+MENO: I should say that health is the same, both in man and woman.
+
+SOCRATES: And is not this true of size and strength? If a woman is
+strong, she will be strong by reason of the same form and of the same
+strength subsisting in her which there is in the man. I mean to say that
+strength, as strength, whether of man or woman, is the same. Is there
+any difference?
+
+MENO: I think not.
+
+SOCRATES: And will not virtue, as virtue, be the same, whether in a
+child or in a grown-up person, in a woman or in a man?
+
+MENO: I cannot help feeling, Socrates, that this case is different from
+the others.
+
+SOCRATES: But why? Were you not saying that the virtue of a man was to
+order a state, and the virtue of a woman was to order a house?
+
+MENO: I did say so.
+
+SOCRATES: And can either house or state or anything be well ordered
+without temperance and without justice?
+
+MENO: Certainly not.
+
+SOCRATES: Then they who order a state or a house temperately or justly
+order them with temperance and justice?
+
+MENO: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: Then both men and women, if they are to be good men and women,
+must have the same virtues of temperance and justice?
+
+MENO: True.
+
+SOCRATES: And can either a young man or an elder one be good, if they
+are intemperate and unjust?
+
+MENO: They cannot.
+
+SOCRATES: They must be temperate and just?
+
+MENO: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: Then all men are good in the same way, and by participation in
+the same virtues?
+
+MENO: Such is the inference.
+
+SOCRATES: And they surely would not have been good in the same way,
+unless their virtue had been the same?
+
+MENO: They would not.
+
+SOCRATES: Then now that the sameness of all virtue has been proven, try
+and remember what you and Gorgias say that virtue is.
+
+MENO: Will you have one definition of them all?
+
+SOCRATES: That is what I am seeking.
+
+MENO: If you want to have one definition of them all, I know not what to
+say, but that virtue is the power of governing mankind.
+
+SOCRATES: And does this definition of virtue include all virtue? Is
+virtue the same in a child and in a slave, Meno? Can the child govern
+his father, or the slave his master; and would he who governed be any
+longer a slave?
+
+MENO: I think not, Socrates.
+
+SOCRATES: No, indeed; there would be small reason in that. Yet once
+more, fair friend; according to you, virtue is 'the power of governing;'
+but do you not add 'justly and not unjustly'?
+
+MENO: Yes, Socrates; I agree there; for justice is virtue.
+
+SOCRATES: Would you say 'virtue,' Meno, or 'a virtue'?
+
+MENO: What do you mean?
+
+SOCRATES: I mean as I might say about anything; that a round, for
+example, is 'a figure' and not simply 'figure,' and I should adopt this
+mode of speaking, because there are other figures.
+
+MENO: Quite right; and that is just what I am saying about virtue--that
+there are other virtues as well as justice.
+
+SOCRATES: What are they? tell me the names of them, as I would tell you
+the names of the other figures if you asked me.
+
+MENO: Courage and temperance and wisdom and magnanimity are virtues; and
+there are many others.
+
+SOCRATES: Yes, Meno; and again we are in the same case: in searching
+after one virtue we have found many, though not in the same way as
+before; but we have been unable to find the common virtue which runs
+through them all.
+
+MENO: Why, Socrates, even now I am not able to follow you in the attempt
+to get at one common notion of virtue as of other things.
+
+SOCRATES: No wonder; but I will try to get nearer if I can, for you know
+that all things have a common notion. Suppose now that some one asked
+you the question which I asked before: Meno, he would say, what is
+figure? And if you answered 'roundness,' he would reply to you, in
+my way of speaking, by asking whether you would say that roundness is
+'figure' or 'a figure;' and you would answer 'a figure.'
+
+MENO: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: And for this reason--that there are other figures?
+
+MENO: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And if he proceeded to ask, What other figures are there? you
+would have told him.
+
+MENO: I should.
+
+SOCRATES: And if he similarly asked what colour is, and you answered
+whiteness, and the questioner rejoined, Would you say that whiteness is
+colour or a colour? you would reply, A colour, because there are other
+colours as well.
+
+MENO: I should.
+
+SOCRATES: And if he had said, Tell me what they are?--you would have
+told him of other colours which are colours just as much as whiteness.
+
+MENO: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And suppose that he were to pursue the matter in my way, he
+would say: Ever and anon we are landed in particulars, but this is not
+what I want; tell me then, since you call them by a common name, and
+say that they are all figures, even when opposed to one another, what
+is that common nature which you designate as figure--which contains
+straight as well as round, and is no more one than the other--that would
+be your mode of speaking?
+
+MENO: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And in speaking thus, you do not mean to say that the round
+is round any more than straight, or the straight any more straight than
+round?
+
+MENO: Certainly not.
+
+SOCRATES: You only assert that the round figure is not more a figure
+than the straight, or the straight than the round?
+
+MENO: Very true.
+
+SOCRATES: To what then do we give the name of figure? Try and answer.
+Suppose that when a person asked you this question either about figure
+or colour, you were to reply, Man, I do not understand what you want,
+or know what you are saying; he would look rather astonished and say:
+Do you not understand that I am looking for the 'simile in multis'? And
+then he might put the question in another form: Meno, he might say, what
+is that 'simile in multis' which you call figure, and which includes
+not only round and straight figures, but all? Could you not answer that
+question, Meno? I wish that you would try; the attempt will be good
+practice with a view to the answer about virtue.
+
+MENO: I would rather that you should answer, Socrates.
+
+SOCRATES: Shall I indulge you?
+
+MENO: By all means.
+
+SOCRATES: And then you will tell me about virtue?
+
+MENO: I will.
+
+SOCRATES: Then I must do my best, for there is a prize to be won.
+
+MENO: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: Well, I will try and explain to you what figure is. What do
+you say to this answer?--Figure is the only thing which always follows
+colour. Will you be satisfied with it, as I am sure that I should be, if
+you would let me have a similar definition of virtue?
+
+MENO: But, Socrates, it is such a simple answer.
+
+SOCRATES: Why simple?
+
+MENO: Because, according to you, figure is that which always follows
+colour.
+
+(SOCRATES: Granted.)
+
+MENO: But if a person were to say that he does not know what colour is,
+any more than what figure is--what sort of answer would you have given
+him?
+
+SOCRATES: I should have told him the truth. And if he were a philosopher
+of the eristic and antagonistic sort, I should say to him: You have my
+answer, and if I am wrong, your business is to take up the argument and
+refute me. But if we were friends, and were talking as you and I are
+now, I should reply in a milder strain and more in the dialectician's
+vein; that is to say, I should not only speak the truth, but I should
+make use of premises which the person interrogated would be willing to
+admit. And this is the way in which I shall endeavour to approach you.
+You will acknowledge, will you not, that there is such a thing as an
+end, or termination, or extremity?--all which words I use in the same
+sense, although I am aware that Prodicus might draw distinctions about
+them: but still you, I am sure, would speak of a thing as ended or
+terminated--that is all which I am saying--not anything very difficult.
+
+MENO: Yes, I should; and I believe that I understand your meaning.
+
+SOCRATES: And you would speak of a surface and also of a solid, as for
+example in geometry.
+
+MENO: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: Well then, you are now in a condition to understand my
+definition of figure. I define figure to be that in which the solid
+ends; or, more concisely, the limit of solid.
+
+MENO: And now, Socrates, what is colour?
+
+SOCRATES: You are outrageous, Meno, in thus plaguing a poor old man to
+give you an answer, when you will not take the trouble of remembering
+what is Gorgias' definition of virtue.
+
+MENO: When you have told me what I ask, I will tell you, Socrates.
+
+SOCRATES: A man who was blindfolded has only to hear you talking, and he
+would know that you are a fair creature and have still many lovers.
+
+MENO: Why do you think so?
+
+SOCRATES: Why, because you always speak in imperatives: like all
+beauties when they are in their prime, you are tyrannical; and also,
+as I suspect, you have found out that I have weakness for the fair, and
+therefore to humour you I must answer.
+
+MENO: Please do.
+
+SOCRATES: Would you like me to answer you after the manner of Gorgias,
+which is familiar to you?
+
+MENO: I should like nothing better.
+
+SOCRATES: Do not he and you and Empedocles say that there are certain
+effluences of existence?
+
+MENO: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: And passages into which and through which the effluences pass?
+
+MENO: Exactly.
+
+SOCRATES: And some of the effluences fit into the passages, and some of
+them are too small or too large?
+
+MENO: True.
+
+SOCRATES: And there is such a thing as sight?
+
+MENO: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And now, as Pindar says, 'read my meaning:'--colour is an
+effluence of form, commensurate with sight, and palpable to sense.
+
+MENO: That, Socrates, appears to me to be an admirable answer.
+
+SOCRATES: Why, yes, because it happens to be one which you have been in
+the habit of hearing: and your wit will have discovered, I suspect, that
+you may explain in the same way the nature of sound and smell, and of
+many other similar phenomena.
+
+MENO: Quite true.
+
+SOCRATES: The answer, Meno, was in the orthodox solemn vein, and
+therefore was more acceptable to you than the other answer about figure.
+
+MENO: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And yet, O son of Alexidemus, I cannot help thinking that
+the other was the better; and I am sure that you would be of the
+same opinion, if you would only stay and be initiated, and were not
+compelled, as you said yesterday, to go away before the mysteries.
+
+MENO: But I will stay, Socrates, if you will give me many such answers.
+
+SOCRATES: Well then, for my own sake as well as for yours, I will do
+my very best; but I am afraid that I shall not be able to give you very
+many as good: and now, in your turn, you are to fulfil your promise, and
+tell me what virtue is in the universal; and do not make a singular into
+a plural, as the facetious say of those who break a thing, but deliver
+virtue to me whole and sound, and not broken into a number of pieces: I
+have given you the pattern.
+
+MENO: Well then, Socrates, virtue, as I take it, is when he, who desires
+the honourable, is able to provide it for himself; so the poet says, and
+I say too--
+
+'Virtue is the desire of things honourable and the power of attaining
+them.'
+
+SOCRATES: And does he who desires the honourable also desire the good?
+
+MENO: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: Then are there some who desire the evil and others who desire
+the good? Do not all men, my dear sir, desire good?
+
+MENO: I think not.
+
+SOCRATES: There are some who desire evil?
+
+MENO: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: Do you mean that they think the evils which they desire, to be
+good; or do they know that they are evil and yet desire them?
+
+MENO: Both, I think.
+
+SOCRATES: And do you really imagine, Meno, that a man knows evils to be
+evils and desires them notwithstanding?
+
+MENO: Certainly I do.
+
+SOCRATES: And desire is of possession?
+
+MENO: Yes, of possession.
+
+SOCRATES: And does he think that the evils will do good to him who
+possesses them, or does he know that they will do him harm?
+
+MENO: There are some who think that the evils will do them good, and
+others who know that they will do them harm.
+
+SOCRATES: And, in your opinion, do those who think that they will do
+them good know that they are evils?
+
+MENO: Certainly not.
+
+SOCRATES: Is it not obvious that those who are ignorant of their nature
+do not desire them; but they desire what they suppose to be goods
+although they are really evils; and if they are mistaken and suppose the
+evils to be goods they really desire goods?
+
+MENO: Yes, in that case.
+
+SOCRATES: Well, and do those who, as you say, desire evils, and think
+that evils are hurtful to the possessor of them, know that they will be
+hurt by them?
+
+MENO: They must know it.
+
+SOCRATES: And must they not suppose that those who are hurt are
+miserable in proportion to the hurt which is inflicted upon them?
+
+MENO: How can it be otherwise?
+
+SOCRATES: But are not the miserable ill-fated?
+
+MENO: Yes, indeed.
+
+SOCRATES: And does any one desire to be miserable and ill-fated?
+
+MENO: I should say not, Socrates.
+
+SOCRATES: But if there is no one who desires to be miserable, there is
+no one, Meno, who desires evil; for what is misery but the desire and
+possession of evil?
+
+MENO: That appears to be the truth, Socrates, and I admit that nobody
+desires evil.
+
+SOCRATES: And yet, were you not saying just now that virtue is the
+desire and power of attaining good?
+
+MENO: Yes, I did say so.
+
+SOCRATES: But if this be affirmed, then the desire of good is common to
+all, and one man is no better than another in that respect?
+
+MENO: True.
+
+SOCRATES: And if one man is not better than another in desiring good, he
+must be better in the power of attaining it?
+
+MENO: Exactly.
+
+SOCRATES: Then, according to your definition, virtue would appear to be
+the power of attaining good?
+
+MENO: I entirely approve, Socrates, of the manner in which you now view
+this matter.
+
+SOCRATES: Then let us see whether what you say is true from another
+point of view; for very likely you may be right:--You affirm virtue to
+be the power of attaining goods?
+
+MENO: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And the goods which you mean are such as health and wealth and
+the possession of gold and silver, and having office and honour in the
+state--those are what you would call goods?
+
+MENO: Yes, I should include all those.
+
+SOCRATES: Then, according to Meno, who is the hereditary friend of the
+great king, virtue is the power of getting silver and gold; and would
+you add that they must be gained piously, justly, or do you deem this to
+be of no consequence? And is any mode of acquisition, even if unjust and
+dishonest, equally to be deemed virtue?
+
+MENO: Not virtue, Socrates, but vice.
+
+SOCRATES: Then justice or temperance or holiness, or some other part
+of virtue, as would appear, must accompany the acquisition, and without
+them the mere acquisition of good will not be virtue.
+
+MENO: Why, how can there be virtue without these?
+
+SOCRATES: And the non-acquisition of gold and silver in a dishonest
+manner for oneself or another, or in other words the want of them, may
+be equally virtue?
+
+MENO: True.
+
+SOCRATES: Then the acquisition of such goods is no more virtue than the
+non-acquisition and want of them, but whatever is accompanied by justice
+or honesty is virtue, and whatever is devoid of justice is vice.
+
+MENO: It cannot be otherwise, in my judgment.
+
+SOCRATES: And were we not saying just now that justice, temperance, and
+the like, were each of them a part of virtue?
+
+MENO: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And so, Meno, this is the way in which you mock me.
+
+MENO: Why do you say that, Socrates?
+
+SOCRATES: Why, because I asked you to deliver virtue into my hands whole
+and unbroken, and I gave you a pattern according to which you were to
+frame your answer; and you have forgotten already, and tell me that
+virtue is the power of attaining good justly, or with justice; and
+justice you acknowledge to be a part of virtue.
+
+MENO: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: Then it follows from your own admissions, that virtue is doing
+what you do with a part of virtue; for justice and the like are said by
+you to be parts of virtue.
+
+MENO: What of that?
+
+SOCRATES: What of that! Why, did not I ask you to tell me the nature
+of virtue as a whole? And you are very far from telling me this; but
+declare every action to be virtue which is done with a part of virtue;
+as though you had told me and I must already know the whole of virtue,
+and this too when frittered away into little pieces. And, therefore, my
+dear Meno, I fear that I must begin again and repeat the same question:
+What is virtue? for otherwise, I can only say, that every action done
+with a part of virtue is virtue; what else is the meaning of saying
+that every action done with justice is virtue? Ought I not to ask the
+question over again; for can any one who does not know virtue know a
+part of virtue?
+
+MENO: No; I do not say that he can.
+
+SOCRATES: Do you remember how, in the example of figure, we rejected any
+answer given in terms which were as yet unexplained or unadmitted?
+
+MENO: Yes, Socrates; and we were quite right in doing so.
+
+SOCRATES: But then, my friend, do not suppose that we can explain to any
+one the nature of virtue as a whole through some unexplained portion of
+virtue, or anything at all in that fashion; we should only have to ask
+over again the old question, What is virtue? Am I not right?
+
+MENO: I believe that you are.
+
+SOCRATES: Then begin again, and answer me, What, according to you and
+your friend Gorgias, is the definition of virtue?
+
+MENO: O Socrates, I used to be told, before I knew you, that you were
+always doubting yourself and making others doubt; and now you are
+casting your spells over me, and I am simply getting bewitched and
+enchanted, and am at my wits' end. And if I may venture to make a jest
+upon you, you seem to me both in your appearance and in your power over
+others to be very like the flat torpedo fish, who torpifies those who
+come near him and touch him, as you have now torpified me, I think. For
+my soul and my tongue are really torpid, and I do not know how to answer
+you; and though I have been delivered of an infinite variety of speeches
+about virtue before now, and to many persons--and very good ones they
+were, as I thought--at this moment I cannot even say what virtue is. And
+I think that you are very wise in not voyaging and going away from home,
+for if you did in other places as you do in Athens, you would be cast
+into prison as a magician.
+
+SOCRATES: You are a rogue, Meno, and had all but caught me.
+
+MENO: What do you mean, Socrates?
+
+SOCRATES: I can tell why you made a simile about me.
+
+MENO: Why?
+
+SOCRATES: In order that I might make another simile about you. For I
+know that all pretty young gentlemen like to have pretty similes made
+about them--as well they may--but I shall not return the compliment. As
+to my being a torpedo, if the torpedo is torpid as well as the cause of
+torpidity in others, then indeed I am a torpedo, but not otherwise;
+for I perplex others, not because I am clear, but because I am utterly
+perplexed myself. And now I know not what virtue is, and you seem to be
+in the same case, although you did once perhaps know before you touched
+me. However, I have no objection to join with you in the enquiry.
+
+MENO: And how will you enquire, Socrates, into that which you do not
+know? What will you put forth as the subject of enquiry? And if you find
+what you want, how will you ever know that this is the thing which you
+did not know?
+
+SOCRATES: I know, Meno, what you mean; but just see what a tiresome
+dispute you are introducing. You argue that a man cannot enquire either
+about that which he knows, or about that which he does not know; for if
+he knows, he has no need to enquire; and if not, he cannot; for he does
+not know the very subject about which he is to enquire (Compare Aristot.
+Post. Anal.).
+
+MENO: Well, Socrates, and is not the argument sound?
+
+SOCRATES: I think not.
+
+MENO: Why not?
+
+SOCRATES: I will tell you why: I have heard from certain wise men and
+women who spoke of things divine that--
+
+MENO: What did they say?
+
+SOCRATES: They spoke of a glorious truth, as I conceive.
+
+MENO: What was it? and who were they?
+
+SOCRATES: Some of them were priests and priestesses, who had studied how
+they might be able to give a reason of their profession: there have been
+poets also, who spoke of these things by inspiration, like Pindar, and
+many others who were inspired. And they say--mark, now, and see whether
+their words are true--they say that the soul of man is immortal, and at
+one time has an end, which is termed dying, and at another time is born
+again, but is never destroyed. And the moral is, that a man ought to
+live always in perfect holiness. 'For in the ninth year Persephone sends
+the souls of those from whom she has received the penalty of ancient
+crime back again from beneath into the light of the sun above, and these
+are they who become noble kings and mighty men and great in wisdom
+and are called saintly heroes in after ages.' The soul, then, as being
+immortal, and having been born again many times, and having seen all
+things that exist, whether in this world or in the world below, has
+knowledge of them all; and it is no wonder that she should be able
+to call to remembrance all that she ever knew about virtue, and about
+everything; for as all nature is akin, and the soul has learned all
+things; there is no difficulty in her eliciting or as men say learning,
+out of a single recollection all the rest, if a man is strenuous and
+does not faint; for all enquiry and all learning is but recollection.
+And therefore we ought not to listen to this sophistical argument about
+the impossibility of enquiry: for it will make us idle; and is sweet
+only to the sluggard; but the other saying will make us active and
+inquisitive. In that confiding, I will gladly enquire with you into the
+nature of virtue.
+
+MENO: Yes, Socrates; but what do you mean by saying that we do not
+learn, and that what we call learning is only a process of recollection?
+Can you teach me how this is?
+
+SOCRATES: I told you, Meno, just now that you were a rogue, and now you
+ask whether I can teach you, when I am saying that there is no teaching,
+but only recollection; and thus you imagine that you will involve me in
+a contradiction.
+
+MENO: Indeed, Socrates, I protest that I had no such intention. I only
+asked the question from habit; but if you can prove to me that what you
+say is true, I wish that you would.
+
+SOCRATES: It will be no easy matter, but I will try to please you to
+the utmost of my power. Suppose that you call one of your numerous
+attendants, that I may demonstrate on him.
+
+MENO: Certainly. Come hither, boy.
+
+SOCRATES: He is Greek, and speaks Greek, does he not?
+
+MENO: Yes, indeed; he was born in the house.
+
+SOCRATES: Attend now to the questions which I ask him, and observe
+whether he learns of me or only remembers.
+
+MENO: I will.
+
+SOCRATES: Tell me, boy, do you know that a figure like this is a square?
+
+BOY: I do.
+
+SOCRATES: And you know that a square figure has these four lines equal?
+
+BOY: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: And these lines which I have drawn through the middle of the
+square are also equal?
+
+BOY: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: A square may be of any size?
+
+BOY: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: And if one side of the figure be of two feet, and the other
+side be of two feet, how much will the whole be? Let me explain: if in
+one direction the space was of two feet, and in the other direction of
+one foot, the whole would be of two feet taken once?
+
+BOY: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: But since this side is also of two feet, there are twice two
+feet?
+
+BOY: There are.
+
+SOCRATES: Then the square is of twice two feet?
+
+BOY: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And how many are twice two feet? count and tell me.
+
+BOY: Four, Socrates.
+
+SOCRATES: And might there not be another square twice as large as this,
+and having like this the lines equal?
+
+BOY: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And of how many feet will that be?
+
+BOY: Of eight feet.
+
+SOCRATES: And now try and tell me the length of the line which forms the
+side of that double square: this is two feet--what will that be?
+
+BOY: Clearly, Socrates, it will be double.
+
+SOCRATES: Do you observe, Meno, that I am not teaching the boy anything,
+but only asking him questions; and now he fancies that he knows how long
+a line is necessary in order to produce a figure of eight square feet;
+does he not?
+
+MENO: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And does he really know?
+
+MENO: Certainly not.
+
+SOCRATES: He only guesses that because the square is double, the line is
+double.
+
+MENO: True.
+
+SOCRATES: Observe him while he recalls the steps in regular order. (To
+the Boy:) Tell me, boy, do you assert that a double space comes from
+a double line? Remember that I am not speaking of an oblong, but of a
+figure equal every way, and twice the size of this--that is to say
+of eight feet; and I want to know whether you still say that a double
+square comes from double line?
+
+BOY: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: But does not this line become doubled if we add another such
+line here?
+
+BOY: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: And four such lines will make a space containing eight feet?
+
+BOY: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: Let us describe such a figure: Would you not say that this is
+the figure of eight feet?
+
+BOY: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And are there not these four divisions in the figure, each of
+which is equal to the figure of four feet?
+
+BOY: True.
+
+SOCRATES: And is not that four times four?
+
+BOY: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: And four times is not double?
+
+BOY: No, indeed.
+
+SOCRATES: But how much?
+
+BOY: Four times as much.
+
+SOCRATES: Therefore the double line, boy, has given a space, not twice,
+but four times as much.
+
+BOY: True.
+
+SOCRATES: Four times four are sixteen--are they not?
+
+BOY: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: What line would give you a space of eight feet, as this gives
+one of sixteen feet;--do you see?
+
+BOY: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And the space of four feet is made from this half line?
+
+BOY: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: Good; and is not a space of eight feet twice the size of this,
+and half the size of the other?
+
+BOY: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: Such a space, then, will be made out of a line greater than
+this one, and less than that one?
+
+BOY: Yes; I think so.
+
+SOCRATES: Very good; I like to hear you say what you think. And now tell
+me, is not this a line of two feet and that of four?
+
+BOY: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: Then the line which forms the side of eight feet ought to be
+more than this line of two feet, and less than the other of four feet?
+
+BOY: It ought.
+
+SOCRATES: Try and see if you can tell me how much it will be.
+
+BOY: Three feet.
+
+SOCRATES: Then if we add a half to this line of two, that will be the
+line of three. Here are two and there is one; and on the other side,
+here are two also and there is one: and that makes the figure of which
+you speak?
+
+BOY: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: But if there are three feet this way and three feet that way,
+the whole space will be three times three feet?
+
+BOY: That is evident.
+
+SOCRATES: And how much are three times three feet?
+
+BOY: Nine.
+
+SOCRATES: And how much is the double of four?
+
+BOY: Eight.
+
+SOCRATES: Then the figure of eight is not made out of a line of three?
+
+BOY: No.
+
+SOCRATES: But from what line?--tell me exactly; and if you would rather
+not reckon, try and show me the line.
+
+BOY: Indeed, Socrates, I do not know.
+
+SOCRATES: Do you see, Meno, what advances he has made in his power of
+recollection? He did not know at first, and he does not know now, what
+is the side of a figure of eight feet: but then he thought that he knew,
+and answered confidently as if he knew, and had no difficulty; now he
+has a difficulty, and neither knows nor fancies that he knows.
+
+MENO: True.
+
+SOCRATES: Is he not better off in knowing his ignorance?
+
+MENO: I think that he is.
+
+SOCRATES: If we have made him doubt, and given him the 'torpedo's
+shock,' have we done him any harm?
+
+MENO: I think not.
+
+SOCRATES: We have certainly, as would seem, assisted him in some degree
+to the discovery of the truth; and now he will wish to remedy his
+ignorance, but then he would have been ready to tell all the world again
+and again that the double space should have a double side.
+
+MENO: True.
+
+SOCRATES: But do you suppose that he would ever have enquired into or
+learned what he fancied that he knew, though he was really ignorant of
+it, until he had fallen into perplexity under the idea that he did not
+know, and had desired to know?
+
+MENO: I think not, Socrates.
+
+SOCRATES: Then he was the better for the torpedo's touch?
+
+MENO: I think so.
+
+SOCRATES: Mark now the farther development. I shall only ask him, and
+not teach him, and he shall share the enquiry with me: and do you watch
+and see if you find me telling or explaining anything to him, instead of
+eliciting his opinion. Tell me, boy, is not this a square of four feet
+which I have drawn?
+
+BOY: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And now I add another square equal to the former one?
+
+BOY: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And a third, which is equal to either of them?
+
+BOY: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: Suppose that we fill up the vacant corner?
+
+BOY: Very good.
+
+SOCRATES: Here, then, there are four equal spaces?
+
+BOY: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And how many times larger is this space than this other?
+
+BOY: Four times.
+
+SOCRATES: But it ought to have been twice only, as you will remember.
+
+BOY: True.
+
+SOCRATES: And does not this line, reaching from corner to corner, bisect
+each of these spaces?
+
+BOY: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And are there not here four equal lines which contain this
+space?
+
+BOY: There are.
+
+SOCRATES: Look and see how much this space is.
+
+BOY: I do not understand.
+
+SOCRATES: Has not each interior line cut off half of the four spaces?
+
+BOY: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And how many spaces are there in this section?
+
+BOY: Four.
+
+SOCRATES: And how many in this?
+
+BOY: Two.
+
+SOCRATES: And four is how many times two?
+
+BOY: Twice.
+
+SOCRATES: And this space is of how many feet?
+
+BOY: Of eight feet.
+
+SOCRATES: And from what line do you get this figure?
+
+BOY: From this.
+
+SOCRATES: That is, from the line which extends from corner to corner of
+the figure of four feet?
+
+BOY: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And that is the line which the learned call the diagonal.
+And if this is the proper name, then you, Meno's slave, are prepared to
+affirm that the double space is the square of the diagonal?
+
+BOY: Certainly, Socrates.
+
+SOCRATES: What do you say of him, Meno? Were not all these answers given
+out of his own head?
+
+MENO: Yes, they were all his own.
+
+SOCRATES: And yet, as we were just now saying, he did not know?
+
+MENO: True.
+
+SOCRATES: But still he had in him those notions of his--had he not?
+
+MENO: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: Then he who does not know may still have true notions of that
+which he does not know?
+
+MENO: He has.
+
+SOCRATES: And at present these notions have just been stirred up in him,
+as in a dream; but if he were frequently asked the same questions, in
+different forms, he would know as well as any one at last?
+
+MENO: I dare say.
+
+SOCRATES: Without any one teaching him he will recover his knowledge for
+himself, if he is only asked questions?
+
+MENO: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And this spontaneous recovery of knowledge in him is
+recollection?
+
+MENO: True.
+
+SOCRATES: And this knowledge which he now has must he not either have
+acquired or always possessed?
+
+MENO: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: But if he always possessed this knowledge he would always have
+known; or if he has acquired the knowledge he could not have acquired it
+in this life, unless he has been taught geometry; for he may be made to
+do the same with all geometry and every other branch of knowledge. Now,
+has any one ever taught him all this? You must know about him, if, as
+you say, he was born and bred in your house.
+
+MENO: And I am certain that no one ever did teach him.
+
+SOCRATES: And yet he has the knowledge?
+
+MENO: The fact, Socrates, is undeniable.
+
+SOCRATES: But if he did not acquire the knowledge in this life, then he
+must have had and learned it at some other time?
+
+MENO: Clearly he must.
+
+SOCRATES: Which must have been the time when he was not a man?
+
+MENO: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And if there have been always true thoughts in him, both at
+the time when he was and was not a man, which only need to be awakened
+into knowledge by putting questions to him, his soul must have always
+possessed this knowledge, for he always either was or was not a man?
+
+MENO: Obviously.
+
+SOCRATES: And if the truth of all things always existed in the soul,
+then the soul is immortal. Wherefore be of good cheer, and try to
+recollect what you do not know, or rather what you do not remember.
+
+MENO: I feel, somehow, that I like what you are saying.
+
+SOCRATES: And I, Meno, like what I am saying. Some things I have said
+of which I am not altogether confident. But that we shall be better and
+braver and less helpless if we think that we ought to enquire, than
+we should have been if we indulged in the idle fancy that there was no
+knowing and no use in seeking to know what we do not know;--that is a
+theme upon which I am ready to fight, in word and deed, to the utmost of
+my power.
+
+MENO: There again, Socrates, your words seem to me excellent.
+
+SOCRATES: Then, as we are agreed that a man should enquire about that
+which he does not know, shall you and I make an effort to enquire
+together into the nature of virtue?
+
+MENO: By all means, Socrates. And yet I would much rather return to my
+original question, Whether in seeking to acquire virtue we should regard
+it as a thing to be taught, or as a gift of nature, or as coming to men
+in some other way?
+
+SOCRATES: Had I the command of you as well as of myself, Meno, I would
+not have enquired whether virtue is given by instruction or not,
+until we had first ascertained 'what it is.' But as you think only
+of controlling me who am your slave, and never of controlling
+yourself,--such being your notion of freedom, I must yield to you,
+for you are irresistible. And therefore I have now to enquire into the
+qualities of a thing of which I do not as yet know the nature. At any
+rate, will you condescend a little, and allow the question 'Whether
+virtue is given by instruction, or in any other way,' to be argued upon
+hypothesis? As the geometrician, when he is asked whether a certain
+triangle is capable being inscribed in a certain circle (Or, whether a
+certain area is capable of being inscribed as a triangle in a certain
+circle.), will reply: 'I cannot tell you as yet; but I will offer a
+hypothesis which may assist us in forming a conclusion: If the figure be
+such that when you have produced a given side of it (Or, when you apply
+it to the given line, i.e. the diameter of the circle (autou).), the
+given area of the triangle falls short by an area corresponding to
+the part produced (Or, similar to the area so applied.), then one
+consequence follows, and if this is impossible then some other; and
+therefore I wish to assume a hypothesis before I tell you whether
+this triangle is capable of being inscribed in the circle':--that is
+a geometrical hypothesis. And we too, as we know not the nature and
+qualities of virtue, must ask, whether virtue is or is not taught, under
+a hypothesis: as thus, if virtue is of such a class of mental goods,
+will it be taught or not? Let the first hypothesis be that virtue is or
+is not knowledge,--in that case will it be taught or not? or, as we were
+just now saying, 'remembered'? For there is no use in disputing about
+the name. But is virtue taught or not? or rather, does not every one see
+that knowledge alone is taught?
+
+MENO: I agree.
+
+SOCRATES: Then if virtue is knowledge, virtue will be taught?
+
+MENO: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: Then now we have made a quick end of this question: if virtue
+is of such a nature, it will be taught; and if not, not?
+
+MENO: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: The next question is, whether virtue is knowledge or of
+another species?
+
+MENO: Yes, that appears to be the question which comes next in order.
+
+SOCRATES: Do we not say that virtue is a good?--This is a hypothesis
+which is not set aside.
+
+MENO: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: Now, if there be any sort of good which is distinct from
+knowledge, virtue may be that good; but if knowledge embraces all good,
+then we shall be right in thinking that virtue is knowledge?
+
+MENO: True.
+
+SOCRATES: And virtue makes us good?
+
+MENO: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And if we are good, then we are profitable; for all good
+things are profitable?
+
+MENO: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: Then virtue is profitable?
+
+MENO: That is the only inference.
+
+SOCRATES: Then now let us see what are the things which severally profit
+us. Health and strength, and beauty and wealth--these, and the like of
+these, we call profitable?
+
+MENO: True.
+
+SOCRATES: And yet these things may also sometimes do us harm: would you
+not think so?
+
+MENO: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And what is the guiding principle which makes them profitable
+or the reverse? Are they not profitable when they are rightly used, and
+hurtful when they are not rightly used?
+
+MENO: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: Next, let us consider the goods of the soul: they are
+temperance, justice, courage, quickness of apprehension, memory,
+magnanimity, and the like?
+
+MENO: Surely.
+
+SOCRATES: And such of these as are not knowledge, but of another sort,
+are sometimes profitable and sometimes hurtful; as, for example, courage
+wanting prudence, which is only a sort of confidence? When a man has no
+sense he is harmed by courage, but when he has sense he is profited?
+
+MENO: True.
+
+SOCRATES: And the same may be said of temperance and quickness of
+apprehension; whatever things are learned or done with sense are
+profitable, but when done without sense they are hurtful?
+
+MENO: Very true.
+
+SOCRATES: And in general, all that the soul attempts or endures, when
+under the guidance of wisdom, ends in happiness; but when she is under
+the guidance of folly, in the opposite?
+
+MENO: That appears to be true.
+
+SOCRATES: If then virtue is a quality of the soul, and is admitted to be
+profitable, it must be wisdom or prudence, since none of the things of
+the soul are either profitable or hurtful in themselves, but they are
+all made profitable or hurtful by the addition of wisdom or of folly;
+and therefore if virtue is profitable, virtue must be a sort of wisdom
+or prudence?
+
+MENO: I quite agree.
+
+SOCRATES: And the other goods, such as wealth and the like, of which we
+were just now saying that they are sometimes good and sometimes evil,
+do not they also become profitable or hurtful, accordingly as the soul
+guides and uses them rightly or wrongly; just as the things of the soul
+herself are benefited when under the guidance of wisdom and harmed by
+folly?
+
+MENO: True.
+
+SOCRATES: And the wise soul guides them rightly, and the foolish soul
+wrongly.
+
+MENO: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And is not this universally true of human nature? All other
+things hang upon the soul, and the things of the soul herself hang upon
+wisdom, if they are to be good; and so wisdom is inferred to be that
+which profits--and virtue, as we say, is profitable?
+
+MENO: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: And thus we arrive at the conclusion that virtue is either
+wholly or partly wisdom?
+
+MENO: I think that what you are saying, Socrates, is very true.
+
+SOCRATES: But if this is true, then the good are not by nature good?
+
+MENO: I think not.
+
+SOCRATES: If they had been, there would assuredly have been discerners
+of characters among us who would have known our future great men; and on
+their showing we should have adopted them, and when we had got them, we
+should have kept them in the citadel out of the way of harm, and set a
+stamp upon them far rather than upon a piece of gold, in order that no
+one might tamper with them; and when they grew up they would have been
+useful to the state?
+
+MENO: Yes, Socrates, that would have been the right way.
+
+SOCRATES: But if the good are not by nature good, are they made good by
+instruction?
+
+MENO: There appears to be no other alternative, Socrates. On the
+supposition that virtue is knowledge, there can be no doubt that virtue
+is taught.
+
+SOCRATES: Yes, indeed; but what if the supposition is erroneous?
+
+MENO: I certainly thought just now that we were right.
+
+SOCRATES: Yes, Meno; but a principle which has any soundness should
+stand firm not only just now, but always.
+
+MENO: Well; and why are you so slow of heart to believe that knowledge
+is virtue?
+
+SOCRATES: I will try and tell you why, Meno. I do not retract the
+assertion that if virtue is knowledge it may be taught; but I fear that
+I have some reason in doubting whether virtue is knowledge: for consider
+now and say whether virtue, and not only virtue but anything that is
+taught, must not have teachers and disciples?
+
+MENO: Surely.
+
+SOCRATES: And conversely, may not the art of which neither teachers nor
+disciples exist be assumed to be incapable of being taught?
+
+MENO: True; but do you think that there are no teachers of virtue?
+
+SOCRATES: I have certainly often enquired whether there were any, and
+taken great pains to find them, and have never succeeded; and many have
+assisted me in the search, and they were the persons whom I thought the
+most likely to know. Here at the moment when he is wanted we fortunately
+have sitting by us Anytus, the very person of whom we should make
+enquiry; to him then let us repair. In the first place, he is the son
+of a wealthy and wise father, Anthemion, who acquired his wealth, not
+by accident or gift, like Ismenias the Theban (who has recently made
+himself as rich as Polycrates), but by his own skill and industry, and
+who is a well-conditioned, modest man, not insolent, or overbearing, or
+annoying; moreover, this son of his has received a good education, as
+the Athenian people certainly appear to think, for they choose him to
+fill the highest offices. And these are the sort of men from whom you
+are likely to learn whether there are any teachers of virtue, and who
+they are. Please, Anytus, to help me and your friend Meno in answering
+our question, Who are the teachers? Consider the matter thus: If we
+wanted Meno to be a good physician, to whom should we send him? Should
+we not send him to the physicians?
+
+ANYTUS: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: Or if we wanted him to be a good cobbler, should we not send
+him to the cobblers?
+
+ANYTUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And so forth?
+
+ANYTUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: Let me trouble you with one more question. When we say that we
+should be right in sending him to the physicians if we wanted him to be
+a physician, do we mean that we should be right in sending him to those
+who profess the art, rather than to those who do not, and to those who
+demand payment for teaching the art, and profess to teach it to any one
+who will come and learn? And if these were our reasons, should we not be
+right in sending him?
+
+ANYTUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And might not the same be said of flute-playing, and of the
+other arts? Would a man who wanted to make another a flute-player refuse
+to send him to those who profess to teach the art for money, and be
+plaguing other persons to give him instruction, who are not professed
+teachers and who never had a single disciple in that branch of knowledge
+which he wishes him to acquire--would not such conduct be the height of
+folly?
+
+ANYTUS: Yes, by Zeus, and of ignorance too.
+
+SOCRATES: Very good. And now you are in a position to advise with me
+about my friend Meno. He has been telling me, Anytus, that he desires
+to attain that kind of wisdom and virtue by which men order the state or
+the house, and honour their parents, and know when to receive and when
+to send away citizens and strangers, as a good man should. Now, to
+whom should he go in order that he may learn this virtue? Does not the
+previous argument imply clearly that we should send him to those who
+profess and avouch that they are the common teachers of all Hellas, and
+are ready to impart instruction to any one who likes, at a fixed price?
+
+ANYTUS: Whom do you mean, Socrates?
+
+SOCRATES: You surely know, do you not, Anytus, that these are the people
+whom mankind call Sophists?
+
+ANYTUS: By Heracles, Socrates, forbear! I only hope that no friend or
+kinsman or acquaintance of mine, whether citizen or stranger, will ever
+be so mad as to allow himself to be corrupted by them; for they are
+a manifest pest and corrupting influence to those who have to do with
+them.
+
+SOCRATES: What, Anytus? Of all the people who profess that they know how
+to do men good, do you mean to say that these are the only ones who not
+only do them no good, but positively corrupt those who are entrusted to
+them, and in return for this disservice have the face to demand money?
+Indeed, I cannot believe you; for I know of a single man, Protagoras,
+who made more out of his craft than the illustrious Pheidias, who
+created such noble works, or any ten other statuaries. How could that
+be? A mender of old shoes, or patcher up of clothes, who made the shoes
+or clothes worse than he received them, could not have remained thirty
+days undetected, and would very soon have starved; whereas during more
+than forty years, Protagoras was corrupting all Hellas, and sending his
+disciples from him worse than he received them, and he was never found
+out. For, if I am not mistaken, he was about seventy years old at his
+death, forty of which were spent in the practice of his profession;
+and during all that time he had a good reputation, which to this day he
+retains: and not only Protagoras, but many others are well spoken of;
+some who lived before him, and others who are still living. Now, when
+you say that they deceived and corrupted the youth, are they to be
+supposed to have corrupted them consciously or unconsciously? Can those
+who were deemed by many to be the wisest men of Hellas have been out of
+their minds?
+
+ANYTUS: Out of their minds! No, Socrates; the young men who gave their
+money to them were out of their minds, and their relations and guardians
+who entrusted their youth to the care of these men were still more out
+of their minds, and most of all, the cities who allowed them to come in,
+and did not drive them out, citizen and stranger alike.
+
+SOCRATES: Has any of the Sophists wronged you, Anytus? What makes you so
+angry with them?
+
+ANYTUS: No, indeed, neither I nor any of my belongings has ever had, nor
+would I suffer them to have, anything to do with them.
+
+SOCRATES: Then you are entirely unacquainted with them?
+
+ANYTUS: And I have no wish to be acquainted.
+
+SOCRATES: Then, my dear friend, how can you know whether a thing is good
+or bad of which you are wholly ignorant?
+
+ANYTUS: Quite well; I am sure that I know what manner of men these are,
+whether I am acquainted with them or not.
+
+SOCRATES: You must be a diviner, Anytus, for I really cannot make out,
+judging from your own words, how, if you are not acquainted with them,
+you know about them. But I am not enquiring of you who are the teachers
+who will corrupt Meno (let them be, if you please, the Sophists); I only
+ask you to tell him who there is in this great city who will teach him
+how to become eminent in the virtues which I was just now describing. He
+is the friend of your family, and you will oblige him.
+
+ANYTUS: Why do you not tell him yourself?
+
+SOCRATES: I have told him whom I supposed to be the teachers of these
+things; but I learn from you that I am utterly at fault, and I dare say
+that you are right. And now I wish that you, on your part, would tell me
+to whom among the Athenians he should go. Whom would you name?
+
+ANYTUS: Why single out individuals? Any Athenian gentleman, taken at
+random, if he will mind him, will do far more good to him than the
+Sophists.
+
+SOCRATES: And did those gentlemen grow of themselves; and without having
+been taught by any one, were they nevertheless able to teach others that
+which they had never learned themselves?
+
+ANYTUS: I imagine that they learned of the previous generation of
+gentlemen. Have there not been many good men in this city?
+
+SOCRATES: Yes, certainly, Anytus; and many good statesmen also there
+always have been and there are still, in the city of Athens. But
+the question is whether they were also good teachers of their own
+virtue;--not whether there are, or have been, good men in this part of
+the world, but whether virtue can be taught, is the question which we
+have been discussing. Now, do we mean to say that the good men of our
+own and of other times knew how to impart to others that virtue
+which they had themselves; or is virtue a thing incapable of being
+communicated or imparted by one man to another? That is the question
+which I and Meno have been arguing. Look at the matter in your own way:
+Would you not admit that Themistocles was a good man?
+
+ANYTUS: Certainly; no man better.
+
+SOCRATES: And must not he then have been a good teacher, if any man ever
+was a good teacher, of his own virtue?
+
+ANYTUS: Yes certainly,--if he wanted to be so.
+
+SOCRATES: But would he not have wanted? He would, at any rate, have
+desired to make his own son a good man and a gentleman; he could not
+have been jealous of him, or have intentionally abstained from
+imparting to him his own virtue. Did you never hear that he made his son
+Cleophantus a famous horseman; and had him taught to stand upright on
+horseback and hurl a javelin, and to do many other marvellous things;
+and in anything which could be learned from a master he was well
+trained? Have you not heard from our elders of him?
+
+ANYTUS: I have.
+
+SOCRATES: Then no one could say that his son showed any want of
+capacity?
+
+ANYTUS: Very likely not.
+
+SOCRATES: But did any one, old or young, ever say in your hearing that
+Cleophantus, son of Themistocles, was a wise or good man, as his father
+was?
+
+ANYTUS: I have certainly never heard any one say so.
+
+SOCRATES: And if virtue could have been taught, would his father
+Themistocles have sought to train him in these minor accomplishments,
+and allowed him who, as you must remember, was his own son, to be
+no better than his neighbours in those qualities in which he himself
+excelled?
+
+ANYTUS: Indeed, indeed, I think not.
+
+SOCRATES: Here was a teacher of virtue whom you admit to be among
+the best men of the past. Let us take another,--Aristides, the son of
+Lysimachus: would you not acknowledge that he was a good man?
+
+ANYTUS: To be sure I should.
+
+SOCRATES: And did not he train his son Lysimachus better than any other
+Athenian in all that could be done for him by the help of masters? But
+what has been the result? Is he a bit better than any other mortal?
+He is an acquaintance of yours, and you see what he is like. There is
+Pericles, again, magnificent in his wisdom; and he, as you are aware,
+had two sons, Paralus and Xanthippus.
+
+ANYTUS: I know.
+
+SOCRATES: And you know, also, that he taught them to be unrivalled
+horsemen, and had them trained in music and gymnastics and all sorts of
+arts--in these respects they were on a level with the best--and had
+he no wish to make good men of them? Nay, he must have wished it. But
+virtue, as I suspect, could not be taught. And that you may not suppose
+the incompetent teachers to be only the meaner sort of Athenians and
+few in number, remember again that Thucydides had two sons, Melesias and
+Stephanus, whom, besides giving them a good education in other things,
+he trained in wrestling, and they were the best wrestlers in Athens: one
+of them he committed to the care of Xanthias, and the other of Eudorus,
+who had the reputation of being the most celebrated wrestlers of that
+day. Do you remember them?
+
+ANYTUS: I have heard of them.
+
+SOCRATES: Now, can there be a doubt that Thucydides, whose children were
+taught things for which he had to spend money, would have taught them
+to be good men, which would have cost him nothing, if virtue could have
+been taught? Will you reply that he was a mean man, and had not many
+friends among the Athenians and allies? Nay, but he was of a great
+family, and a man of influence at Athens and in all Hellas, and, if
+virtue could have been taught, he would have found out some Athenian
+or foreigner who would have made good men of his sons, if he could not
+himself spare the time from cares of state. Once more, I suspect, friend
+Anytus, that virtue is not a thing which can be taught?
+
+ANYTUS: Socrates, I think that you are too ready to speak evil of men:
+and, if you will take my advice, I would recommend you to be careful.
+Perhaps there is no city in which it is not easier to do men harm than
+to do them good, and this is certainly the case at Athens, as I believe
+that you know.
+
+SOCRATES: O Meno, think that Anytus is in a rage. And he may well be
+in a rage, for he thinks, in the first place, that I am defaming these
+gentlemen; and in the second place, he is of opinion that he is one
+of them himself. But some day he will know what is the meaning of
+defamation, and if he ever does, he will forgive me. Meanwhile I will
+return to you, Meno; for I suppose that there are gentlemen in your
+region too?
+
+MENO: Certainly there are.
+
+SOCRATES: And are they willing to teach the young? and do they profess
+to be teachers? and do they agree that virtue is taught?
+
+MENO: No indeed, Socrates, they are anything but agreed; you may hear
+them saying at one time that virtue can be taught, and then again the
+reverse.
+
+SOCRATES: Can we call those teachers who do not acknowledge the
+possibility of their own vocation?
+
+MENO: I think not, Socrates.
+
+SOCRATES: And what do you think of these Sophists, who are the only
+professors? Do they seem to you to be teachers of virtue?
+
+MENO: I often wonder, Socrates, that Gorgias is never heard promising to
+teach virtue: and when he hears others promising he only laughs at them;
+but he thinks that men should be taught to speak.
+
+SOCRATES: Then do you not think that the Sophists are teachers?
+
+MENO: I cannot tell you, Socrates; like the rest of the world, I am in
+doubt, and sometimes I think that they are teachers and sometimes not.
+
+SOCRATES: And are you aware that not you only and other politicians have
+doubts whether virtue can be taught or not, but that Theognis the poet
+says the very same thing?
+
+MENO: Where does he say so?
+
+SOCRATES: In these elegiac verses (Theog.):
+
+'Eat and drink and sit with the mighty, and make yourself agreeable to
+them; for from the good you will learn what is good, but if you mix with
+the bad you will lose the intelligence which you already have.'
+
+Do you observe that here he seems to imply that virtue can be taught?
+
+MENO: Clearly.
+
+SOCRATES: But in some other verses he shifts about and says (Theog.):
+
+'If understanding could be created and put into a man, then they' (who
+were able to perform this feat) 'would have obtained great rewards.'
+
+And again:--
+
+'Never would a bad son have sprung from a good sire, for he would have
+heard the voice of instruction; but not by teaching will you ever make a
+bad man into a good one.'
+
+And this, as you may remark, is a contradiction of the other.
+
+MENO: Clearly.
+
+SOCRATES: And is there anything else of which the professors are
+affirmed not only not to be teachers of others, but to be ignorant
+themselves, and bad at the knowledge of that which they are professing
+to teach? or is there anything about which even the acknowledged
+'gentlemen' are sometimes saying that 'this thing can be taught,' and
+sometimes the opposite? Can you say that they are teachers in any true
+sense whose ideas are in such confusion?
+
+MENO: I should say, certainly not.
+
+SOCRATES: But if neither the Sophists nor the gentlemen are teachers,
+clearly there can be no other teachers?
+
+MENO: No.
+
+SOCRATES: And if there are no teachers, neither are there disciples?
+
+MENO: Agreed.
+
+SOCRATES: And we have admitted that a thing cannot be taught of which
+there are neither teachers nor disciples?
+
+MENO: We have.
+
+SOCRATES: And there are no teachers of virtue to be found anywhere?
+
+MENO: There are not.
+
+SOCRATES: And if there are no teachers, neither are there scholars?
+
+MENO: That, I think, is true.
+
+SOCRATES: Then virtue cannot be taught?
+
+MENO: Not if we are right in our view. But I cannot believe, Socrates,
+that there are no good men: And if there are, how did they come into
+existence?
+
+SOCRATES: I am afraid, Meno, that you and I are not good for much, and
+that Gorgias has been as poor an educator of you as Prodicus has been of
+me. Certainly we shall have to look to ourselves, and try to find
+some one who will help in some way or other to improve us. This I say,
+because I observe that in the previous discussion none of us remarked
+that right and good action is possible to man under other guidance than
+that of knowledge (episteme);--and indeed if this be denied, there is no
+seeing how there can be any good men at all.
+
+MENO: How do you mean, Socrates?
+
+SOCRATES: I mean that good men are necessarily useful or profitable.
+Were we not right in admitting this? It must be so.
+
+MENO: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And in supposing that they will be useful only if they are
+true guides to us of action--there we were also right?
+
+MENO: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: But when we said that a man cannot be a good guide unless he
+have knowledge (phrhonesis), this we were wrong.
+
+MENO: What do you mean by the word 'right'?
+
+SOCRATES: I will explain. If a man knew the way to Larisa, or anywhere
+else, and went to the place and led others thither, would he not be a
+right and good guide?
+
+MENO: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: And a person who had a right opinion about the way, but had
+never been and did not know, might be a good guide also, might he not?
+
+MENO: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: And while he has true opinion about that which the other
+knows, he will be just as good a guide if he thinks the truth, as he who
+knows the truth?
+
+MENO: Exactly.
+
+SOCRATES: Then true opinion is as good a guide to correct action as
+knowledge; and that was the point which we omitted in our speculation
+about the nature of virtue, when we said that knowledge only is the
+guide of right action; whereas there is also right opinion.
+
+MENO: True.
+
+SOCRATES: Then right opinion is not less useful than knowledge?
+
+MENO: The difference, Socrates, is only that he who has knowledge will
+always be right; but he who has right opinion will sometimes be right,
+and sometimes not.
+
+SOCRATES: What do you mean? Can he be wrong who has right opinion, so
+long as he has right opinion?
+
+MENO: I admit the cogency of your argument, and therefore, Socrates, I
+wonder that knowledge should be preferred to right opinion--or why they
+should ever differ.
+
+SOCRATES: And shall I explain this wonder to you?
+
+MENO: Do tell me.
+
+SOCRATES: You would not wonder if you had ever observed the images of
+Daedalus (Compare Euthyphro); but perhaps you have not got them in your
+country?
+
+MENO: What have they to do with the question?
+
+SOCRATES: Because they require to be fastened in order to keep them, and
+if they are not fastened they will play truant and run away.
+
+MENO: Well, what of that?
+
+SOCRATES: I mean to say that they are not very valuable possessions if
+they are at liberty, for they will walk off like runaway slaves; but
+when fastened, they are of great value, for they are really beautiful
+works of art. Now this is an illustration of the nature of true
+opinions: while they abide with us they are beautiful and fruitful,
+but they run away out of the human soul, and do not remain long, and
+therefore they are not of much value until they are fastened by the tie
+of the cause; and this fastening of them, friend Meno, is recollection,
+as you and I have agreed to call it. But when they are bound, in the
+first place, they have the nature of knowledge; and, in the second
+place, they are abiding. And this is why knowledge is more honourable
+and excellent than true opinion, because fastened by a chain.
+
+MENO: What you are saying, Socrates, seems to be very like the truth.
+
+SOCRATES: I too speak rather in ignorance; I only conjecture. And yet
+that knowledge differs from true opinion is no matter of conjecture with
+me. There are not many things which I profess to know, but this is most
+certainly one of them.
+
+MENO: Yes, Socrates; and you are quite right in saying so.
+
+SOCRATES: And am I not also right in saying that true opinion leading
+the way perfects action quite as well as knowledge?
+
+MENO: There again, Socrates, I think you are right.
+
+SOCRATES: Then right opinion is not a whit inferior to knowledge, or
+less useful in action; nor is the man who has right opinion inferior to
+him who has knowledge?
+
+MENO: True.
+
+SOCRATES: And surely the good man has been acknowledged by us to be
+useful?
+
+MENO: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: Seeing then that men become good and useful to states, not
+only because they have knowledge, but because they have right opinion,
+and that neither knowledge nor right opinion is given to man by nature
+or acquired by him--(do you imagine either of them to be given by
+nature?
+
+MENO: Not I.)
+
+SOCRATES: Then if they are not given by nature, neither are the good by
+nature good?
+
+MENO: Certainly not.
+
+SOCRATES: And nature being excluded, then came the question whether
+virtue is acquired by teaching?
+
+MENO: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: If virtue was wisdom (or knowledge), then, as we thought, it
+was taught?
+
+MENO: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And if it was taught it was wisdom?
+
+MENO: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: And if there were teachers, it might be taught; and if there
+were no teachers, not?
+
+MENO: True.
+
+SOCRATES: But surely we acknowledged that there were no teachers of
+virtue?
+
+MENO: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: Then we acknowledged that it was not taught, and was not
+wisdom?
+
+MENO: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: And yet we admitted that it was a good?
+
+MENO: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And the right guide is useful and good?
+
+MENO: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: And the only right guides are knowledge and true
+opinion--these are the guides of man; for things which happen by chance
+are not under the guidance of man: but the guides of man are true
+opinion and knowledge.
+
+MENO: I think so too.
+
+SOCRATES: But if virtue is not taught, neither is virtue knowledge.
+
+MENO: Clearly not.
+
+SOCRATES: Then of two good and useful things, one, which is knowledge,
+has been set aside, and cannot be supposed to be our guide in political
+life.
+
+MENO: I think not.
+
+SOCRATES: And therefore not by any wisdom, and not because they were
+wise, did Themistocles and those others of whom Anytus spoke govern
+states. This was the reason why they were unable to make others like
+themselves--because their virtue was not grounded on knowledge.
+
+MENO: That is probably true, Socrates.
+
+SOCRATES: But if not by knowledge, the only alternative which remains
+is that statesmen must have guided states by right opinion, which is in
+politics what divination is in religion; for diviners and also prophets
+say many things truly, but they know not what they say.
+
+MENO: So I believe.
+
+SOCRATES: And may we not, Meno, truly call those men 'divine' who,
+having no understanding, yet succeed in many a grand deed and word?
+
+MENO: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: Then we shall also be right in calling divine those whom we
+were just now speaking of as diviners and prophets, including the whole
+tribe of poets. Yes, and statesmen above all may be said to be divine
+and illumined, being inspired and possessed of God, in which condition
+they say many grand things, not knowing what they say.
+
+MENO: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And the women too, Meno, call good men divine--do they not?
+and the Spartans, when they praise a good man, say 'that he is a divine
+man.'
+
+MENO: And I think, Socrates, that they are right; although very likely
+our friend Anytus may take offence at the word.
+
+SOCRATES: I do not care; as for Anytus, there will be another
+opportunity of talking with him. To sum up our enquiry--the result
+seems to be, if we are at all right in our view, that virtue is neither
+natural nor acquired, but an instinct given by God to the virtuous. Nor
+is the instinct accompanied by reason, unless there may be supposed to
+be among statesmen some one who is capable of educating statesmen. And
+if there be such an one, he may be said to be among the living
+what Homer says that Tiresias was among the dead, 'he alone has
+understanding; but the rest are flitting shades'; and he and his virtue
+in like manner will be a reality among shadows.
+
+MENO: That is excellent, Socrates.
+
+SOCRATES: Then, Meno, the conclusion is that virtue comes to the
+virtuous by the gift of God. But we shall never know the certain truth
+until, before asking how virtue is given, we enquire into the actual
+nature of virtue. I fear that I must go away, but do you, now that you
+are persuaded yourself, persuade our friend Anytus. And do not let him
+be so exasperated; if you can conciliate him, you will have done good
+service to the Athenian people.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Meno, by Plato
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