lar to the more philosophical; it has never occurred
to him that there was any other courage than that of the soldier; and
only by an effort of the mind can he frame a general notion at all. No
sooner has this general notion been formed than it evanesces before the
dialectic of Socrates; and Nicias appears from the other side with the
Socratic doctrine, that courage is knowledge. This is explained to mean
knowledge of things terrible in the future. But Socrates denies that the
knowledge of the future is separable from that of the past and present;
in other words, true knowledge is not that of the soothsayer but of the
philosopher. And all knowledge will thus be equivalent to all virtue--a
position which elsewhere Socrates is not unwilling to admit, but which
will not assist us in distinguishing the nature of courage. In this part
of the Dialogue the contrast between the mode of cross-examination which
is practised by Laches and by Socrates, and also the manner in which
the definition of Laches is made to approximate to that of Nicias, are
worthy of attention.

Thus, with some intimation of the connexion and unity of virtue and
knowledge, we arrive at no distinct result. The two aspects of courage
are never harmonized. The knowledge which in the Protagoras is explained
as the faculty of estimating pleasures and pains is here lost in an
unmeaning and transcendental conception. Yet several true intimations of
the nature of courage are allowed to appear: (1) That courage is
moral as well as physical: (2) That true courage is inseparable from
knowledge, and yet (3) is based on a natural instinct. Laches exhibits
one aspect of courage; Nicias the other. The perfect image and harmony
of both is only realized in Socrates himself.

The Dialogue offers one among many examples of the freedom with which
Plato treats facts. For the scene must be supposed to have occurred
between B.C. 424, the year of the battle of Delium, and B.C. 418, the
year of the battle of Mantinea, at which Laches fell. But if Socrates
was more than seventy years of age at his trial in 399 (see Apology), he
could not have been a young man at any time after the battle of Delium.

LACHES, OR COURAGE.

PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE:

Lysimachus, son of Aristides.
Melesias, son of Thucydides.
Their sons.
Nicias, Laches, Socrates.

LYSIMACHUS: You have seen the exhibition of the man fighting in armour,
Nicias and Laches, but we d