Dialogues of Plato - MobileReference [397]
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