PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE:
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Plato and Jowett, Benjamin
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.
LACHES: Yes.
SOCRATES: Tell him then, Nicias, what you mean by this wisdom; for you surely do not mean the wisdom which plays the flute?
NICIAS: Certainly not.
SOCRATES: Nor the wisdom which plays the lyre?
NICIAS: No.
SOCRATES: But what is this knowledge then, and of what?
LACHES: I think that you put the question to him very well, Socrates; and I would like him to say what is the nature of this knowledge or wisdom.
NICIAS: I mean to say, Laches, that courage is the knowledge of that which inspires fear or confidence in war, or in anything.
LACHES: How strangely he is talking, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Why do you say so, Laches?
LACHES: Why, surely courage is one thing, and wisdom another.
SOCRATES: That is just what Nicias denies.
LACHES: Yes, that is what he denies; but he is so silly.
SOCRATES: Suppose that we instruct instead of abusing him?
NICIAS: Laches does not want to instruct me, Socrates; but having been proved to be talking nonsense himself, he wants to prove that I have been doing the same.
LACHES: Very true, Nicias; and you are talking nonsense, as I shall endeavour to show. Let me ask you a question: Do not physicians know the dangers of disease? or do the courageous know them? or are the physicians the same as the courageous?
NICIAS: Not at all.
LACHES: No more than the husbandmen who know the dangers of husbandry, or than other craftsmen, who have a knowledge of that which inspires them with fear or confidence in their own arts, and yet they are not courageous a whit the more for that.
SOCRATES: What is Laches saying, Nicias? He appears to be saying something of importance.
NICIAS: Yes, he is saying something, but it is not true.
SOCRATES: How so?
NICIAS: Why, because he does not see that the physician's knowledge only extends to the nature of health and disease: he can tell the sick man no more than this. Do you imagine, Laches, that the physician knows whether health or disease is the more terrible to a man? Had not many a man better never get up from a sick bed? I should like to know whether you think that life is always better than death. May not death often be the better of the two?
LACHES: Yes certainly so in my opinion.
NICIAS: And do you think that the same things are terrible to those who had better die, and to those who had better live?
LACHES: Certainly not.
NICIAS: And do you suppose that the physician or any other artist knows this, or any one indeed, except he who is skilled in the grounds of fear and hope? And him I call the courageous.
SOCRATES: Do you understand his meaning, Laches?
LACHES: Yes; I suppose that, in his way of speaking, the soothsayers are courageous. For who but one of them can know to whom to die or to live is better? And yet Nicias, would you allow that you are yourself a soothsayer, or are you neither a soothsayer nor courageous?
NICIAS: What! do you mean to say that the soothsayer ought to know the grounds of hope or fear?
LACHES: Indeed I do: who but he?
NICIAS: Much rather I should say he of whom I speak; for the soothsayer ought to know only the signs of things that are about to come to pass, whether death or disease, or loss of property, or victory, or defeat in war, or in any sort of contest; but to whom the suffering or not suffering of these things will be for the best, can no more be decided by the soothsayer than by one who is no soothsayer.
LACHES: I cannot understand what Nicias would be at, Socrates; for he represents the courageous man as neither a soothsayer, nor a physician, nor in any other character, unless he means to say that he is a god. My opinion is that he does not like honestly to confess that he is talking nonsense, but that he shuffles up and down in order to conceal the difficulty into which he has got himself. You and I, Socrates, might have practised a similar shuffle just now, if we had only wanted to avoid the appearance of inconsistency. And if we had been arguing in a court of law there might have been reason in so doing; but why should a man deck himself out with vain words at a meeting of friends such as this?
SOCRATES: I quite agree with you, Laches, that he should not. But perhaps Nicias is serious, and not merely talking for the sake of talking. Let us ask him just to explain what he means, and if he has reason on his side we will agree with him; if not, we will instruct him.
LACHES: Do you, Socrates, if you like, ask him: I think that I have asked enough.
SOCRATES: I do not see why I should not; and my question will do for both of us.
LACHES: Very good.
SOCRATES: Then tell me, Nicias, or rather tell us, for Laches and I are partners in the argument: Do you mean to affirm that courage is the knowledge of the grounds of hope and fear?