Page - 79 - in The Complete Plato

SOCRATES: The principle of endurance. We too must endure and persevere in the enquiry, and then courage will not laugh at our faint- heartedness in searching for courage; which after all may, very likely, be endurance. LACHES: I am ready to go on, Socrates; and yet I am unused to investigations of this sort. But the spirit of controversy has been aroused in me by what has been said; and I am really grieved at being thus unable to express my meaning. For I fancy that I do know the nature of courage; but, somehow or other, she has slipped away from me, and I cannot get hold of her and tell her nature. SOCRATES: But, my dear friend, should not the good sportsman follow the track, and not be lazy? LACHES: Certainly, he should. SOCRATES: And shall we invite Nicias to join us? he may be better at the sport than we are. What do you say? LACHES: I should like that. SOCRATES: Come then, Nicias, and do what you can to help your friends, who are tossing on the waves of argument, and at the last gasp: you see our extremity, and may save us and also settle your own opinion, if you will tell us what you think about courage. NICIAS: I have been thinking, Socrates, that you and Laches are not defining courage in the right way; for you have forgotten an excellent saying which I have heard from your own lips. SOCRATES: What is it, Nicias? NICIAS: I have often heard you say that ‘Every man is good in that in which he is wise, and bad in that in which he is unwise.’ SOCRATES: That is certainly true, Nicias. NICIAS: And therefore if the brave man is good, he is also wise. SOCRATES: Do you hear him, Laches? LACHES: Yes, I hear him, but I do not very well understand him. SOCRATES: I think that I understand him; and he appears to me to mean that courage is a sort of wisdom. LACHES: What can he possibly mean, Socrates? SOCRATES: That is a question which you must ask of himself. 79