d suppose I were to be asked by some one: What is that
common quality, Socrates, which, in all these uses of the word, you call
quickness? I should say the quality which accomplishes much in a little
time--whether in running, speaking, or in any other sort of action.

LACHES: You would be quite correct.

SOCRATES: And now, Laches, do you try and tell me in like manner, What
is that common quality which is called courage, and which includes all
the various uses of the term when applied both to pleasure and pain, and
in all the cases to which I was just now referring?

LACHES: I should say that courage is a sort of endurance of the soul, if
I am to speak of the universal nature which pervades them all.

SOCRATES: But that is what we must do if we are to answer the question.
And yet I cannot say that every kind of endurance is, in my opinion,
to be deemed courage. Hear my reason: I am sure, Laches, that you would
consider courage to be a very noble quality.

LACHES: Most noble, certainly.

SOCRATES: And you would say that a wise endurance is also good and
noble?

LACHES: Very noble.

SOCRATES: But what would you say of a foolish endurance? Is not that, on
the other hand, to be regarded as evil and hurtful?

LACHES: True.

SOCRATES: And is anything noble which is evil and hurtful?

LACHES: I ought not to say that, Socrates.

SOCRATES: Then you would not admit that sort of endurance to be
courage--for it is not noble, but courage is noble?

LACHES: You are right.

SOCRATES: Then, according to you, only the wise endurance is courage?

LACHES: True.

SOCRATES: But as to the epithet 'wise,'--wise in what? In all things
small as well as great? For example, if a man shows the quality of
endurance in spending his money wisely, knowing that by spending he will
acquire more in the end, do you call him courageous?

LACHES: Assuredly not.

SOCRATES: Or, for example, if a man is a physician, and his son, or some
patient of his, has inflammation of the lungs, and begs that he may be
allowed to eat or drink something, and the other is firm and refuses; is
that courage?

LACHES: No; that is not courage at all, any more than the last.

SOCRATES: Again, take the case of one who endures in war, and is willing
to fight, and wisely calculates and knows that others will help him,
and that there will be fewer and inferior men against him than there are
with him; and suppose that he has also advantages of position; would