Page - 77 - in The Complete Plato

LACHES: True. SOCRATES: And is anything noble which is evil and hurtful? LACHES: I ought not to say that, Socrates. SOCRATES: Then you would not admit that sort of endurance to be courage— for it is not noble, but courage is noble? LACHES: You are right. SOCRATES: Then, according to you, only the wise endurance is courage? LACHES: True. SOCRATES: But as to the epithet ‘wise,’—wise in what? In all things small as well as great? For example, if a man shows the quality of endurance in spending his money wisely, knowing that by spending he will acquire more in the end, do you call him courageous? LACHES: Assuredly not. SOCRATES: Or, for example, if a man is a physician, and his son, or some patient of his, has inflammation of the lungs, and begs that he may be allowed to eat or drink something, and the other is firm and refuses; is that courage? LACHES: No; that is not courage at all, any more than the last. SOCRATES: Again, take the case of one who endures in war, and is willing to fight, and wisely calculates and knows that others will help him, and that there will be fewer and inferior men against him than there are with him; and suppose that he has also advantages of position; would you say of such a one who endures with all this wisdom and preparation, that he, or some man in the opposing army who is in the opposite circumstances to these and yet endures and remains at his post, is the braver? LACHES: I should say that the latter, Socrates, was the braver. SOCRATES: But, surely, this is a foolish endurance in comparison with the other? LACHES: That is true. SOCRATES: Then you would say that he who in an engagement of cavalry endures, having the knowledge of horsemanship, is not so courageous as he who endures, having no such knowledge? LACHES: So I should say. SOCRATES: And he who endures, having a knowledge of the use of the sling, or the bow, or of any other art, is not so courageous as he who endures, 77