Laches | Page 4

restrict the enquiry to that part of virtue which
is concerned with the use of weapons--'What is Courage?' Laches
thinks that he knows this: (1) 'He is courageous who remains at his
post.' But some nations fight flying, after the manner of Aeneas in
Homer; or as the heavy-armed Spartans also did at the battle of Plataea.
(2) Socrates wants a more general definition, not only of military
courage, but of courage of all sorts, tried both amid pleasures and pains.
Laches replies that this universal courage is endurance. But courage is a
good thing, and mere endurance may be hurtful and injurious.
Therefore (3) the element of intelligence must be added. But then again
unintelligent endurance may often be more courageous than the
intelligent, the bad than the good. How is this contradiction to be
solved? Socrates and Laches are not set 'to the Dorian mode' of words
and actions; for their words are all confusion, although their actions are
courageous. Still they must 'endure' in an argument about endurance.
Laches is very willing, and is quite sure that he knows what courage is,
if he could only tell.
Nicias is now appealed to; and in reply he offers a definition which he
has heard from Socrates himself, to the effect that (1) 'Courage is
intelligence.' Laches derides this; and Socrates enquires, 'What sort of
intelligence?' to which Nicias replies, 'Intelligence of things terrible.'
'But every man knows the things to be dreaded in his own art.' 'No they
do not. They may predict results, but cannot tell whether they are really

terrible; only the courageous man can tell that.' Laches draws the
inference that the courageous man is either a soothsayer or a god.
Again, (2) in Nicias' way of speaking, the term 'courageous' must be
denied to animals or children, because they do not know the danger.
Against this inversion of the ordinary use of language Laches reclaims,
but is in some degree mollified by a compliment to his own courage.
Still, he does not like to see an Athenian statesman and general
descending to sophistries of this sort. Socrates resumes the argument.
Courage has been defined to be intelligence or knowledge of the
terrible; and courage is not all virtue, but only one of the virtues. The
terrible is in the future, and therefore the knowledge of the terrible is a
knowledge of the future. But there can be no knowledge of future good
or evil separated from a knowledge of the good and evil of the past or
present; that is to say, of all good and evil. Courage, therefore, is the
knowledge of good and evil generally. But he who has the knowledge
of good and evil generally, must not only have courage, but also
temperance, justice, and every other virtue. Thus, a single virtue would
be the same as all virtues (compare Protagoras). And after all the two
generals, and Socrates, the hero of Delium, are still in ignorance of the
nature of courage. They must go to school again, boys, old men and all.
Some points of resemblance, and some points of difference, appear in
the Laches when compared with the Charmides and Lysis. There is less
of poetical and simple beauty, and more of dramatic interest and power.
They are richer in the externals of the scene; the Laches has more play
and development of character. In the Lysis and Charmides the youths
are the central figures, and frequent allusions are made to the place of
meeting, which is a palaestra. Here the place of meeting, which is also
a palaestra, is quite forgotten, and the boys play a subordinate part. The
seance is of old and elder men, of whom Socrates is the youngest.
First is the aged Lysimachus, who may be compared with Cephalus in
the Republic, and, like him, withdraws from the argument. Melesias,
who is only his shadow, also subsides into silence. Both of them, by
their own confession, have been ill-educated, as is further shown by the
circumstance that Lysimachus, the friend of Sophroniscus, has never
heard of the fame of Socrates, his son; they belong to different circles.
In the Meno their want of education in all but the arts of riding and
wrestling is adduced as a proof that virtue cannot be taught. The

recognition of Socrates by Lysimachus is extremely graceful; and his
military exploits naturally connect him with the two generals, of whom
one has witnessed them. The characters of Nicias and Laches are
indicated by their opinions on the exhibition of the man fighting in
heavy armour. The more enlightened Nicias is quite ready to accept the
new art, which Laches treats with ridicule, seeming to think that this, or
any other military question, may be settled by asking, 'What do the
Lacedaemonians