Meno (90-94)

Soc.

I must say I have often inquired whether there were any, but for all my pains I cannot find one. And yet many have shared the search with me, and particularly those persons whom I regard as best qualified for the task. But look, Meno: here, at the very moment when he was wanted, we have Anytus sitting down beside us,

to take his share in our quest. And we may well ask his assistance; for our friend Anytus, in the first place, is the son of a wise and wealthy father, Anthemion, who became rich not by a fluke or a gift—like that man the other day, Ismenias[*] the Theban, who has come into the fortune of a Polycrates[*]—but as the product of his own skill and industry[*]; and secondly, he has the name of being in general a well-conducted, mannerly person, not insolent towards his fellow-citizens or arrogant and annoying; and further, he gave his son a good upbringing and education, as the Athenian people think, for they choose him for the highest offices. This is the sort of man to whom one may look for help in the inquiry as to whether there are teachers of virtue or not, and who they may be. So please, Anytus, join with me and your family-friend Meno in our inquiry about this matter—who can be the teachers. Consider it thus: if we wanted Meno here to be a good doctor, to whom should we send him for instruction? Would it not be to the doctors?

An.

Certainly.

Soc.

And if we wanted him to become a good cobbler, should we not send him to the cobblers?

An.

Yes.

Soc.

And in the same way with every other trade?

An.

Certainly.

Soc.

Now let me ask you something more about these same instances. We should be right, we say, in sending him to the doctors if we wanted him to be a doctor.

When we say this, do we mean that we should be wise in sending him to those who profess the art rather than those who do not, and to those who charge a fee for the particular thing they do, as avowed teachers of anyone who wishes to come and learn of them? If these were our reasons, should we not be right in sending him?

An.

Yes.

Soc.

And the same would hold in the case of flute-playing, and so on with the rest? What folly, when we wanted to make someone a flute-player,

to refuse to send him to the professed teachers of the art, who charge a regular fee, and to bother with requests for instruction other people who neither set up to be teachers nor have a single pupil in that sort of study which we expect him, when sent, to pursue! Do you not consider this would be grossly unreasonable?

An.

Yes, on my word, I do, and stupid to boot.

Soc.

Quite right. And now there is an opportunity of your

joining me in a consultation on my friend Meno here. He has been declaring to me ever so long, Anytus, that he desires to have that wisdom and virtue whereby men keep their house or their city in good order, and honor their parents, and know when to welcome and when to speed citizens and strangers as befits a good man. Now tell me, to whom ought we properly to send him for lessons in this virtue? Or is it clear enough, from our argument just now, that he should go to these men who profess to be teachers of virtue and advertise themselves as the common teachers of the Greeks, and are ready to instruct anyone who chooses in return for fees charged on a fixed scale?

An.

To whom are you referring, Socrates?

Soc.

Surely you know as well as anyone; they are the men whom people call sophists.

An.

For heaven’s sake hold your tongue, Socrates! May no kinsman or friend of mine, whether of this city or another, be seized with such madness as to let himself be infected with the company of those men; for they are a manifest plague and corruption to those who frequent them.[*]

Soc.

What is this, Anytus? Of all the people who set up to understand how to do us good, do you mean to single out these as conveying not merely no benefit, such as the rest can give, but actually corruption

to anyone placed in their hands? And is it for doing this that they openly claim the payment of fees? For my part I cannot bring myself to believe you; for I know of one man, Protagoras, who amassed more money by his craft than Pheidias—so famous for the noble works he produced—or any ten other sculptors. And yet how surprising that menders of old shoes and furbishers of clothes should not be able to go undetected thirty days if they should return the clothes or shoes in worse condition than they received them, and that such doings on their part would quickly starve them to death, while for more than forty years all Greece failed to notice that Protagoras was corrupting his classes and sending his pupils away in a worse state than when he took charge of them! For I believe he died about seventy years old, forty of which he spent in the practice of his art;

Soc.

and he retains undiminished to this day the high reputation he has enjoyed all that time—and not only Protagoras,

but a multitude of others too: some who lived before him, and others still living. Now are we to take it, according to you, that they wittingly deceived and corrupted the youth, or that they were themselves unconscious of it? Are we to conclude those who are frequently termed the wisest of mankind to have been so demented as that?

An.

Demented! Not they, Socrates: far rather the young men who pay them money, and still more the relations

who let the young men have their way; and most of all the cities that allow them to enter, and do not expel them, whether such attempt be made by stranger or citizen.

Soc.

Tell me, Anytus, has any of the sophists wronged you? What makes you so hard on them?

An.

No, heaven knows I have never in my life had dealings with any of them, nor would I let any of my people have to do with them either.

Soc.

Then you have absolutely no experience of those persons?

An.

And trust I never may.

Soc.

How then, my good sir, can you tell whether a thing has any good or evil in it, if you are quite without experience of it?

An.

Easily: the fact is, I know what these people are, whether I have experience of them or not.

Soc.

You are a wizard, perhaps, Anytus; for I really cannot see, from what you say yourself, how else you can know anything about them. But we are not inquiring now who the teachers are

whose lessons would make Meno wicked; let us grant, if you will, that they are the sophists: I only ask you to tell us, and do Meno a service as a friend of your family by letting him know, to whom in all this great city he should apply in order to become eminent in the virtue which I described just now.

An.

Why not tell him yourself?

Soc.

I did mention to him the men whom I supposed to be teachers of these things; but I find, from what you say, that I am quite off the track,

and I daresay you are on it. Now you take your turn, and tell him to whom of the Athenians he is to go. Give us a name—anyone you please.

An.

Why mention a particular one? Any Athenian gentleman he comes across, without exception, will do him more good, if he will do as he is bid, than the sophists.

Soc.

And did those gentlemen grow spontaneously into what they are, and without learning from anybody are they able, nevertheless, to teach others

what they did not learn themselves?

An.

I expect they must have learnt in their turn from the older generation, who were gentlemen: or does it not seem to you that we have had many good men in this city?

Soc.

Yes, I agree, Anytus; we have also many who are good at politics, and have had them in the past as well as now. But I want to know whether they have proved good teachers besides of their own virtue: that is the question with which our discussion is actually concerned; not whether there are, or formerly have been,

good men here amongst us or not, but whether virtue is teachable; this has been our problem all the time. And our inquiry into this problem resolves itself into the question: Did the good men of our own and of former times know how to transmit to another man the virtue in respect of which they were good, or is it something not to be transmitted or taken over from one human being to another? That is the question I and Meno have been discussing all this time. Well, just consider it in your own way of speaking: would you not say that Themistocles was a good man?

An.

I would, particularly so.

Soc.

And if any man ever was a teacher of his own virtue, he especially was a good teacher of his?

An.

In my opinion, yes, assuming that he wished to be so.

Soc.

But can you suppose he would not have wished that other people should become good, honorable men—above all, I presume, his own son? Or do you think he was jealous of him, and deliberately refused to impart the virtue

of his own goodness to him? Have you never heard how Themistocles had his son Cleophantus taught to be a good horseman? Why, he could keep his balance standing upright on horseback, and hurl the javelin while so standing, and perform many other wonderful feats in which his father had had him trained, so as to make him skilled in all that could be learnt from good masters. Surely you must have heard all this from your elders?

An.

I have.

Soc.

Then there could be no complaints of badness in his son’s nature?

An.

I daresay not.

Soc.

But I ask you—did you ever hear anybody, old or young, say that Cleophantus, son of Themistocles, had the same goodness and accomplishments as his father?

An.

Certainly not.

Soc.

And can we believe that his father chose to train his own son in those feats, and yet made him no better than his neighbors in his own particular accomplishments—if virtue, as alleged, was to be taught?

An.

On my word, I think not.

Soc.

Well, there you have a fine teacher of virtue who, you admit, was one of the best men of past times.

Let us take another, Aristeides, son of Lysimachus: do you not admit that he was a good man?

An.

I do, absolutely, of course.

Soc.

Well, did he not train his son Lysimachus better than any other Athenian in all that masters could teach him? And in the result, do you consider he has turned out better than anyone else? You have been in his company, I know, and you see what he is like. Or take another example—

the splendidly accomplished Pericles: he, as you are aware, brought up two sons, Paralus and Xanthippus.

An.

Yes.

Soc.

And, you know as well as I, he taught them to be the foremost horsemen of Athens, and trained them to excel in music and gymnastics and all else that comes under the head of the arts; and with all that, had he no desire to make them good men? He wished to, I imagine, but presumably it is not a thing one can be taught. And that you may not suppose it was only a few of the meanest sort of Athenians who failed in this matter,

let me remind you that Thucydides’[*] also brought up two sons, Melesias and Stephanus, and that besides giving them a good general education he made them the best wrestlers in Athens: one he placed with Xanthias, and the other with Eudorus—masters who, I should think, had the name of being the best exponents of the art. You remember them, do you not?

An.

Yes, by hearsay.

Soc.

Well, is it not obvious that this father would never have spent his money on having his children taught all those things,

and then have omitted to teach them at no expense the others that would have made them good men, if virtue was to be taught? Will you say that perhaps Thucydides was one of the meaner sort, and had no great number of friends among the Athenians and allies? He, who was of a great house and had much influence in our city and all over Greece, so that if virtue were to be taught he would have found out the man who was likely to make his sons good, whether one of our own people or a foreigner, were he himself too busy owing to the cares of state! Ah no, my dear Anytus, it looks as though virtue were not a teachable thing.