Socrates has no difficulty in showing that virtue is a good, and that goods, whether of body or mind, must be under the direction of knowledge. Upon the assumption just made, then, virtue is teachable. But where are the teachers? There are 89 none to be found. This is extremely discouraging. Virtue is no sooner discovered to be teachable, than the discovery follows that it is not taught. Virtue, therefore, is and is not teachable. In this dilemma an appeal is made to Anytus, a respectable and 90 well-to-do citizen of the old school, and a family friend of Meno, who happens to be present. He is asked ‘whether Meno shall 91 go to the Sophists and be taught.’ The suggestion throws him into 92 a rage. ‘To whom, then, shall Meno go?’ asks Socrates. To 93 any Athenian gentleman—to the great Athenian statesmen of past times. Socrates replies here, as elsewhere (Laches 179 C foll.; Prot. 319 foll.), that Themistocles, Pericles, and other great men, 94 had sons to whom they would surely, if they could have done so, have imparted their own political wisdom; but no one ever heard that these sons of theirs were remarkable for anything except riding and wrestling and similar accomplishments. Anytus is angry at the imputation which is cast on his favourite statesmen, and on a class to which he supposes himself to belong (cp. 95 A); he breaks off with a significant hint. The mention of 95 another opportunity of talking with him (99 E), and the suggestion that Meno may do the Athenian people a service by pacifying him (100), are evident allusions to the trial of Socrates. Socrates returns to the consideration of the question ‘whether virtue is teachable,’ which was denied on the ground that there are no teachers of it: (for the Sophists are bad teachers, and the 96 rest of the world do not profess to teach). But there is another point which we failed to observe, and in which Gorgias has never instructed Meno, nor Prodicus Socrates. This is the nature of right opinion. For virtue may be under the guidance of right 97 opinion as well as of knowledge; and right opinion is for practical purposes as good as knowledge, but is incapable of being taught, and is also liable, like the images of Daedalus, to ‘walk off,’ 98 because not bound by the tie of the cause. This is the sort of instinct which is possessed by statesmen, who are not wise or knowing persons, but only inspired or divine. The higher virtue, 99 which is identical with knowledge, is an ideal only. If the statesman had this knowledge, and could teach what he knew, he would be like Tiresias in the world below,—‘he alone has wisdom, 100 but the rest flit like shadows.’ * * * * * [Sidenote: INTRODUCTION.]