compelled, as you said yesterday, to go away before the mysteries.

  Men. But I will stay, Socrates, if you will give me many such
answers.

  Soc. Well then, for my own sake as well as for yours, I will do my
very best; but I am afraid that I shall not be able to give you very
many as good: and now, in your turn, you are to fulfil your promise,
and tell me what virtue is in the universal; and do not make a
singular into a plural, as the facetious say of those who break a
thing, but deliver virtue to me whole and sound, and not broken into a
number of pieces: I have given you the pattern.

  Men. Well then, Socrates, virtue, as I take it, is when he, who
desires the honourable, is able to provide it for himself; so the poet
says, and I say too-

   Virtue is the desire of things honourable and the power of
attaining them.

  Soc. And does he who desires the honourable also desire the good?

  Men. Certainly.

  Soc. Then are there some who desire the evil and others who desire
the good? Do not all men, my dear sir, desire good?

  Men. I think not.

  Soc. There are some who desire evil?

  Men. Yes.

  Soc. Do you mean that they think the evils which they desire, to
be good; or do they know that they are evil and yet desire them?

  Men. Both, I think.

  Soc. And do you really imagine, Meno, that a man knows evils to be
evils and desires them notwithstanding?

  Men. Certainly I do.

  Soc. And desire is of possession?

  Men. Yes, of possession.

  Soc. And does he think that the evils will do good to him who
possesses them, or does he know that they will do him harm?

  Men. There are some who think that the evils will do them good,
and others who know that they will do them harm.

  Soc. And, in your opinion, do those who think that they will do them
good know that they are evils?

  Men. Certainly not.

  Soc. Is it not obvious that those who are ignorant of their nature
do not desire them; but they desire what they suppose to be goods
although they are really evils; and if they are mistaken and suppose
the evils to be good they really desire goods?

  Men. Yes, in that case.

  Soc. Well, and do those who, as you say, desire evils, and think
that evils are hurtful to the possessor of them, know that they will
be hurt by them?

  Men. They must know it.

  Soc. And must they not suppose that those who are hurt are miserable
in proportion to the hurt which is inflicted upon them?

  Men. How can it be otherwise?

  Soc. But are not the miserable ill-fated?

  Men. Yes, indeed.

  Soc. And does any one desire to be miserable and ill-fated?

  Men. I should say not, Socrates.

  Soc. But if there is no one who desires to be miserable, there is no
one, Meno, who desires evil; for what is misery but the desire and
possession of evil?

  Men. That appears to be the truth, Socrates, and I admit that nobody
desires evil.

  Soc. And yet, were you not saying just now that virtue is the desire
and power of attaining good?

  Men. Yes, I did say so.

  Soc. But if this be affirmed, then the desire of good is common to
all, and one man is no better than another in that respect?

  Men. True.