puted word is allowed to
intrude: 'Figure is the limit of form.' Meno imperiously insists that
he must still have a definition of colour. Some raillery follows; and
at length Socrates is induced to reply, 'that colour is the effluence of
form, sensible, and in due proportion to the sight.' This definition is
exactly suited to the taste of Meno, who welcomes the familiar language
of Gorgias and Empedocles. Socrates is of opinion that the more abstract
or dialectical definition of figure is far better.

Now that Meno has been made to understand the nature of a general
definition, he answers in the spirit of a Greek gentleman, and in the
words of a poet, 'that virtue is to delight in things honourable, and to
have the power of getting them.' This is a nearer approximation than
he has yet made to a complete definition, and, regarded as a piece
of proverbial or popular morality, is not far from the truth. But the
objection is urged, 'that the honourable is the good,' and as every one
equally desires the good, the point of the definition is contained in
the words, 'the power of getting them.' 'And they must be got justly or
with justice.' The definition will then stand thus: 'Virtue is the power
of getting good with justice.' But justice is a part of virtue, and
therefore virtue is the getting of good with a part of virtue. The
definition repeats the word defined.

Meno complains that the conversation of Socrates has the effect of a
torpedo's shock upon him. When he talks with other persons he has plenty
to say about virtue; in the presence of Socrates, his thoughts desert
him. Socrates replies that he is only the cause of perplexity in others,
because he is himself perplexed. He proposes to continue the enquiry.
But how, asks Meno, can he enquire either into what he knows or into
what he does not know? This is a sophistical puzzle, which, as Socrates
remarks, saves a great deal of trouble to him who accepts it. But the
puzzle has a real difficulty latent under it, to which Socrates will
endeavour to find a reply. The difficulty is the origin of knowledge:--

He has heard from priests and priestesses, and from the poet Pindar, of
an immortal soul which is born again and again in successive periods of
existence, returning into this world when she has paid the penalty of
ancient crime, and, having wandered over all places of the upper and
under world, and seen and known all things at one time or other, is by
association out o