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


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