[Footnote 12: Plato, Menon, p. 79 A. [Greek: e)mou= deêthe/ntos sou mê\ katagnu/mai mêde\ kermati/zein tê\n a)retên], &c. 79 B: [Greek: e)mou= deêthe/ntos o(/lên ei)pei=n tê\n a)retê/n], &c.] [Footnote 13: These examples of trial, error, and exposure, have great value and reflect high credit on Plato, when we regard them as an intellectual or propædeutic discipline, forcing upon hearers an attention to useful logical distinctions at a time when there existed no systematic grammar or logic. But surely they must appear degraded, as they are presented in the Prolegomena of Stallbaum, and by some other critics. We are there told that Plato's main purpose in this dialogue was to mock and jeer the Sophists and their pupil, and that for this purpose Sokrates is made to employ not his own arguments but arguments borrowed from the Sophists themselves--"ut callidé suam ipsius rationem occultare existimandus sit, quo magis illudat Sophistarum alumnum" (p. 15). "Quæ quidem argumentatio" (that of Sokrates) "admodum cavendum est ne pro Socraticâ vel Platonicâ accipiatur. Est enim prorsus ad mentem Sophistarum aliorumque id genus hominum comparata," &c. (p. 16). Compare pp. 12-13 seq. The Sophists undoubtedly had no distinct consciousness, any more than other persons, of these logical distinctions, which were then for the first pressed forcibly upon attention.] [Side-note: Definition of virtue given by Menon: Sokrates pulls it to pieces.] Menon having been thus made to understand the formal requisites for a definition, gives as his definition of virtue the phrase of some lyric poet--"To delight in, or desire, things beautiful, fine, honourable--and to have the power of getting them". But Sokrates remarks that honourable things are good things, and that every one without exception desires good. No one desires evil except when he mistakes it for good. On this point all men are alike; the distinctive feature of virtue must then consist in the second half of the definition--in the power of acquiring good things, such as health, wealth, money, power, dignities, &c.[14] But the acquisition of these things is not virtuous, unless it be made consistently with justice and moderation: moreover the man who acts justly is virtuous, even though he does not acquire them. It appears then that every agent who acts with justice and moderation is virtuous. But this is nugatory as a definition of virtue: for justice and moderation are only known as parts of virtue, and require to be themselves defined. No man can know what a part of virtue is, unless he knows what virtue itself is.[15] Menon must look for a better definition, including nothing but what is already known or admitted. [Footnote 14: Plato, Menon, p. 77 B. [Greek: dokei= toi/nun moi a)retê\ ei)=nai, katha/per o( poiêtê\s le/gei, chai/rein te kaloi=si kai\ du/nasthai. Kai\ e)gô\ tou=to le/gô a)retê\n e)pithumou=nta tô=n kalô=n dunato\n ei)=nai pori/zesthai.]