[Side-note: Remarks on the dialogue. Proper order for examining the different topics, is pointed out by Sokrates.] This last observation is repeated by Sokrates at the end--as it had been stated at the beginning, and in more than one place during the continuance--of the dialogue. In fact, Sokrates seems at first resolved to enforce the natural and necessary priority of the latter question: but is induced by the solicitation of Menon to invert the order.[30] [Footnote 30: Plato, Menon, p. 86.] [Side-note: Mischief of debating ulterior and secondary questions when the fundamental notions and word are unsettled.] The propriety of the order marked out, but not pursued, by Sokrates is indisputable. Before you can enquire how virtue is generated or communicated, you must be satisfied that you know what virtue is. You must know the essence of the subject--or those predicates which the word connotes ( = the meaning of the term) before you investigate its accidents and antecedents.[31] Menon begins by being satisfied that he knows what virtue is: so satisfied, that he accounts it discreditable for a man not to know: although he is made to answer like one who has never thought upon the subject, and does not even understand the question. Sokrates, on the other hand, not only confesses that he does not himself know, but asserts that he never yet met with a man who did know. One of the most important lessons in this, as in so many other Platonic dialogues, is the mischief of proceeding to debate ulterior and secondary questions, without having settled the fundamental words and notions: the false persuasion of knowledge, common to almost every one, respecting these familiar ethical and social ideas. Menon represents the common state of mind. He begins with the false persuasion that he as well as every one else knows what virtue is: and even when he is proved to be ignorant, he still feels no interest in the fundamental enquiry, but turns aside to his original object of curiosity--"Whether virtue is teachable". Nothing can be more repugnant to an ordinary mind than the thorough sifting of deep-seated, long familiarised, notions--[Greek: to\ ga\r o)rthou=sthai gnô/man, o)duna=|]. [Footnote 31: To use the phrase of Plato himself in the Euthyphron, p. 11 A, the [Greek: ou)si/a] must be known before the [Greek: pa/thê] are sought--[Greek: kinduneu/eis, ô)= Eu)thu/phron, e)rôtô/menos to\ o(/sion, o(/, ti/ pot' e)sti, _tê\n me\n ou)si/an_ moi au)tou= ou) bou/lesthai dêlô=sai, _pa/thos de/ ti peri\ au)tou=_ le/gein, o(/, ti pe/ponthe tou=to to\ o(/sion, philei=sthai u(po\ pa/ntôn theô=n; _o(/ ti de\ o)/n, ou)/pô ei)=pes_.] Compare Lachês, p. 190 B and Gorgias, pp. 448 E, 462 C.] [Side-note: Doctrine of Sokrates in the Menon--desire of good alleged to be universally felt--in what sense this is true.]