would do well to have
his eye fixed: Do you understand?

MENO: I am beginning to understand; but I do not as yet take hold of the
question as I could wish.

SOCRATES: When you say, Meno, that there is one virtue of a man, another
of a woman, another of a child, and so on, does this apply only to
virtue, or would you say the same of health, and size, and strength? Or
is the nature of health always the same, whether in man or woman?

MENO: I should say that health is the same, both in man and woman.

SOCRATES: And is not this true of size and strength? If a woman is
strong, she will be strong by reason of the same form and of the same
strength subsisting in her which there is in the man. I mean to say that
strength, as strength, whether of man or woman, is the same. Is there
any difference?

MENO: I think not.

SOCRATES: And will not virtue, as virtue, be the same, whether in a
child or in a grown-up person, in a woman or in a man?

MENO: I cannot help feeling, Socrates, that this case is different from
the others.

SOCRATES: But why? Were you not saying that the virtue of a man was to
order a state, and the virtue of a woman was to order a house?

MENO: I did say so.

SOCRATES: And can either house or state or anything be well ordered
without temperance and without justice?

MENO: Certainly not.

SOCRATES: Then they who order a state or a house temperately or justly
order them with temperance and justice?

MENO: Certainly.

SOCRATES: Then both men and women, if they are to be good men and women,
must have the same virtues of temperance and justice?

MENO: True.

SOCRATES: And can either a young man or an elder one be good, if they
are intemperate and unjust?

MENO: They cannot.

SOCRATES: They must be temperate and just?

MENO: Yes.

SOCRATES: Then all men are good in the same way, and by participation in
the same virtues?

MENO: Such is the inference.

SOCRATES: And they surely would not have been good in the same way,
unless their virtue had been the same?

MENO: They would not.

SOCRATES: Then now that the sameness of all virtue has been proven, try
and remember what you and Gorgias say that virtue is.

MENO: Will you have one definition of them all?

SOCRATES: That is what I am seeking.

MENO: If you want to have one definition of them all, I know not what to
say, but that virtue is the power of governing mankind.

SOCRATES: And does this definition of virtue include all virtue