[Side-note: Courage therefore must be intelligence of good and evil generally. But this definition would include the whole of virtue, and we declared that courage was only a part thereof. It will not hold therefore as a definition of courage.] Since therefore courage, according to your definition, is the knowledge of futurities evil and not evil, or future evil and good--and since such knowledge cannot exist without the knowledge of good and evil generally--it follows that courage is the knowledge of good and evil generally.[22] But a man who knows thus much, cannot be destitute of any part of virtue. He must possess temperance and justice as well as courage. Courage, therefore, according to your definition, is not only a part of virtue, it is the whole. Now we began the enquiry by stating that it was only a part of virtue, and that there were other parts of virtue which it did not comprise. It is plain therefore that your definition of courage is not precise, and cannot be sustained. We have not yet discovered what courage is.[23] [Footnote 22: Plato, Lachês, 199 C. [Greek: kata\ to\n so\n lo/gon ou) mo/non deinô=n te kai\ thar)r(ale/ôn ê( e)pistê/mê a)ndrei/a e)sti/n, a)lla\ schedo/n ti ê( peri\ pa/ntôn a)gathô=n te kai\ kakô=n kai\ pa/ntôs e)cho/ntôn], &c.] [Footnote 23: Plato, Lachês, 199 E. [Greek: Ou)k a)/ra eu)rê/kamen, a)ndrei/a o(/, ti e)/stin.]] * * * * * [Side-note: Remarks. Warfare of Sokrates against the false persuasion of knowledge. Brave generals deliver opinions confidently about courage without knowing what it is.] Here ends the dialogue called Lachês, without any positive result. Nothing is proved except the ignorance of two brave and eminent generals respecting the moral attribute known by the name _Courage_: which nevertheless they are known to possess, and have the full sentiment and persuasion of knowing perfectly; so that they give confident advice as to the means of imparting it. "I am unaccustomed to debates like these" (says Lachês): "but I am piqued and mortified--because I feel that I know well what Courage is, yet somehow or other I cannot state my own thoughts in words." Here is a description[24] of the intellectual deficiency which Sokrates seeks to render conspicuous to the consciousness, instead of suffering it to remain latent and unknown, as it is in the ordinary mind. Here, as elsewhere, he impugns the false persuasion of knowledge, and the unconscious presumption of estimable men in delivering opinions upon ethical and social subjects, which have become familiar and interwoven with deeply rooted associations, but have never been studied under a master, nor carefully analysed and discussed, nor looked at in their full generality. This is a mental defect which he pronounces to be universal: belonging not less to men of action like Nikias and Lachês, than to Sophists and Rhetors like Protagoras and Gorgias.