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
premisses 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.



<< previous page | next page >>

Jump to page: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 |