Part 6

_Soc._ Very good. And now you are in a position to advise 91 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?

_Any._ Whom do you mean, Socrates?

_Soc._ You surely know, do you not, Anytus, that these are the people whom mankind call Sophists?

[Sidenote: Anytus inveighs against the corrupting influence of the Sophists.]

_Any._ 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.

[Sidenote: Why surely they cannot really be corrupters? See what fortunes they make, and what an excellent reputation many of them bear!]

_Soc._ 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 92 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?

[Sidenote: _The rage of Anytus at the Sophists._]

[Sidenote: The wisest men in Hellas could not have been out of their minds? No:—the people who gave their money to them were out of their minds.]

_Any._ 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.

_Soc._ Has any of the Sophists wronged you, Anytus? What makes you so angry with them?

_Any._ No, indeed, neither I nor any of my belongings has ever had, nor would I suffer them to have, anything to do with them.

_Soc._ Then you are entirely unacquainted with them?

_Any._ And I have no wish to be acquainted.

[Sidenote: How can Anytus know that they are bad, if he does not know them at all?]

_Soc._ Then, my dear friend, how can you know whether a thing is good or bad of which you are wholly ignorant?

_Any._ Quite well; I am sure that I know what manner of men these are, whether I am acquainted with them or not.

[Sidenote: Then who will teach Meno virtue?]

_Soc._ 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.

_Any._ Why do you not tell him yourself?

_Soc._ 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?

[Sidenote: _The lesson taught by the example of Themistocles._]

[Sidenote: Any Athenian gentleman who has learned of a previous generation of gentlemen.]

_Any._ 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.

_Soc._ 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 93 themselves?

_Any._ I imagine that they learned of the previous generation of gentlemen. Have there not been many good men in this city?

_Soc._ 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?

_Any._ Certainly; no man better.

[Sidenote: Good men may not have been good teachers. There never was a better man than Themistocles: but he did not make much of his own son.]

_Soc._ And must not he then have been a good teacher, if any man ever was a good teacher, of his own virtue?

_Any._ Yes, certainly,—if he wanted to be so.

_Soc._ 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?

_Any._ I have.

_Soc._ Then no one could say that his son showed any want of capacity?

_Any._ Very likely not.

_Soc._ 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?

[Sidenote: _Aristides, Pericles, Thucydides the son of Melesias._]

[Sidenote: He had him taught accomplishments because there was no one to teach virtue.]

_Any._ I have certainly never heard any one say so.

_Soc._ 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?

_Any._ Indeed, indeed, I think not.

_Soc._ Here was a teacher of virtue whom you admit to be among the best men of the past. Let us take another,—Aristides, 94 the son of Lysimachus: would you not acknowledge that he was a good man?

_Any._ To be sure I should.

[Sidenote: Aristides was also a good man, and Pericles and Thucydides:—they made their sons good horsemen, and wrestlers, and the like, but they did not have them taught to be good, because virtue cannot be taught.]

_Soc._ 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.

_Any._ I know.

_Soc._ 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?

_Any._ I have heard of them.

_Soc._ 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?

[Sidenote: _The sophists again._]

_Any._ 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 95 know.

[Sidenote: Anytus gives an angry warning to Socrates.]

_Soc._ O Meno, I 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?

_Men._ Certainly there are.

_Soc._ And are they willing to teach the young? and do they profess to be teachers? and do they agree that virtue is taught?

[Sidenote: The Thessalian gentry are not agreed about the possibility of teaching virtue.]

_Men._ 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.

_Soc._ Can we call those teachers who do not acknowledge the possibility of their own vocation?

_Men._ I think not, Socrates.

_Soc._ And what do you think of these Sophists, who are the only professors? Do they seem to you to be teachers of virtue?

[Sidenote: _The Sophists no teachers of virtue._]

[Sidenote: Gorgias professes to teach rhetoric, but laughs at those who pretend to teach virtue.]

_Men._ 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.

_Soc._ Then do you not think that the Sophists are teachers?

_Men._ 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.

_Soc._ 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?

_Men._ Where does he say so?

[Sidenote: Theognis implies in one passage that virtue can, and in another that it cannot, be taught.]

_Soc._ In these elegiac verses[10]:—

‘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?

_Men._ Clearly.

_Soc._ But in some other verses he shifts about and says[11]:—

‘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 96 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.

_Men._ Clearly.

[Sidenote: How can they be teachers who are so inconsistent with themselves?]

_Soc._ 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?

_Men._ I should say, certainly not.

_Soc._ But if neither the Sophists nor the gentlemen are teachers, clearly there can be no other teachers?

_Men._ No.

_Soc._ And if there are no teachers, neither are there disciples?

_Men._ Agreed.

[Sidenote: _Knowledge and Opinion._]

_Soc._ And we have admitted that a thing cannot be taught of which there are neither teachers nor disciples?

_Men._ We have.

[Sidenote: If there are no teachers and no scholars, virtue cannot be taught.]

_Soc._ And there are no teachers of virtue to be found anywhere?

_Men._ There are not.

_Soc._ And if there are no teachers, neither are there scholars?

_Men._ That, I think, is true.

_Soc._ Then virtue cannot be taught?

_Men._ 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?

[Sidenote: But were we not mistaken in our view? There may be another guide to good action as well as knowledge.]

_Soc._ 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 (ἐπιστήμη);—and indeed if this be denied, there is no seeing how there can be any good men at all.

_Men._ How do you mean, Socrates?

_Soc._ I mean that good men are necessarily useful or profitable. Were we not right in admitting this? It must 97 be so.

_Men._ Yes.

_Soc._ And in supposing that they will be useful only if they are true guides to us of action—there we were also right?

_Men._ Yes.

_Soc._ But when we said that a man cannot be a good guide unless he have knowledge (φρόνησις), in this we were wrong.

_Men._ What do you mean by the word ‘right’?

_Soc._ 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?

_Men._ Certainly.

_Soc._ 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?

_Men._ Certainly.

_Soc._ 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?

_Men._ Exactly.

[Sidenote: _The images of Daedalus._]

[Sidenote: Right opinion is as good a guide to action as knowledge.]

_Soc._ 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.

_Men._ True.

_Soc._ Then right opinion is not less useful than knowledge?

_Men._ 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.

_Soc._ What do you mean? Can he be wrong who has right opinion, so long as he has right opinion?

_Men._ 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.

_Soc._ And shall I explain this wonder to you?

_Men._ Do tell me.

_Soc._ You would not wonder if you had ever observed the images of Daedalus[12]; but perhaps you have not got them in your country?

_Men._ What have they to do with the question?

_Soc._ Because they require to be fastened in order to keep them, and if they are not fastened they will play truant and run away.

_Men._ Well, what of that?

[Sidenote: _Recapitulation of the argument._]

[Sidenote: But right opinions are apt to walk away, like the images of Daedalus.]

_Soc._ 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 98 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.

_Men._ What you are saying, Socrates, seems to be very like the truth.

_Soc._ 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.

_Men._ Yes, Socrates; and you are quite right in saying so.

_Soc._ And am I not also right in saying that true opinion leading the way perfects action quite as well as knowledge?

_Men._ There again, Socrates, I think that you are right.

_Soc._ 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?

_Men._ True.

_Soc._ And surely the good man has been acknowledged by us to be useful?

_Men._ Yes.

_Soc._ 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?

_Men._ Not I.)

_Soc._ Then if they are not given by nature, neither are the good by nature good?

_Men._ Certainly not.

_Soc._ And nature being excluded, then came the question whether virtue is acquired by teaching?

_Men._ Yes.

_Soc._ If virtue was wisdom [or knowledge], then, as we thought, it was taught?

_Men._ Yes.

_Soc._ And if it was taught it was wisdom?

_Men._ Certainly.

[Sidenote: _Diviners and divine men._]

_Soc._ And if there were teachers, it might be taught; and if there were no teachers, not?

_Men._ True.

_Soc._ But surely we acknowledged that there were no teachers of virtue?

_Men._ Yes.

_Soc._ Then we acknowledged that it was not taught, and was not wisdom?

_Men._ Certainly.

_Soc._ And yet we admitted that it was a good? 99

_Men._ Yes.

_Soc._ And the right guide is useful and good?

_Men._ Certainly.

[Sidenote: If virtue and knowledge cannot be taught, the only right guides of men are true opinions.]

_Soc._ 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.

_Men._ I think so too.

_Soc._ But if virtue is not taught, neither is virtue knowledge.

_Men._ Clearly not.

_Soc._ 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.

_Men._ I think not.

_Soc._ 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.

_Men._ That is probably true, Socrates.

[Sidenote: Right opinion is in politics what divination is in religion; diviners, prophets, poets, statesmen, may all be truly called ‘divine men.’]

_Soc._ 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.

_Men._ So I believe.

_Soc._ And may we not, Meno, truly call those men ‘divine’ who, having no understanding, yet succeed in many a grand deed and word?

_Men._ Certainly.

[Sidenote: _The conclusion._]