t
mind.

And is it partly good and partly bad, I said, or wholly good?

Wholly good, and in the highest degree.

Tell me then; who are they who have confidence when diving into a well?

I should say, the divers.

And the reason of this is that they have knowledge?

Yes, that is the reason.

And who have confidence when fighting on horseback--the skilled horseman
or the unskilled?

The skilled.

And who when fighting with light shields--the peltasts or the
nonpeltasts?

The peltasts. And that is true of all other things, he said, if that is
your point: those who have knowledge are more confident than those who
have no knowledge, and they are more confident after they have learned
than before.

And have you not seen persons utterly ignorant, I said, of these things,
and yet confident about them?

Yes, he said, I have seen such persons far too confident.

And are not these confident persons also courageous?

In that case, he replied, courage would be a base thing, for the men of
whom we are speaking are surely madmen.

Then who are the courageous? Are they not the confident?

Yes, he said; to that statement I adhere.

And those, I said, who are thus confident without knowledge are really
not courageous, but mad; and in that case the wisest are also the most
confident, and being the most confident are also the bravest, and upon
that view again wisdom will be courage.

Nay, Socrates, he replied, you are mistaken in your remembrance of
what was said by me. When you asked me, I certainly did say that
the courageous are the confident; but I was never asked whether the
confident are the courageous; if you had asked me, I should have
answered 'Not all of them': and what I did answer you have not proved to
be false, although you proceeded to show that those who have knowledge
are more courageous than they were before they had knowledge, and more
courageous than others who have no knowledge, and were then led on to
think that courage is the same as wisdom. But in this way of arguing you
might come to imagine that strength is wisdom. You might begin by asking
whether the strong are able, and I should say 'Yes'; and then whether
those who know how to wrestle are not more able to wrestle than those
who do not know how to wrestle, and more able after than before they had
learned, and I should assent. And when I had admitted this, you might
use my admissions in such a way as to prove that upon my view wisdom is