SOCRATES: Great care, then, is required in this matter?

MELESIAS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: Suppose, as I was just now saying, that we were considering, or
wanting to consider, who was the best trainer. Should we not select him
who knew and had practised the art, and had the best teachers?

MELESIAS: I think that we should.

SOCRATES: But would there not arise a prior question about the nature of
the art of which we want to find the masters?

MELESIAS: I do not understand.

SOCRATES: Let me try to make my meaning plainer then. I do not think that
we have as yet decided what that is about which we are consulting, when we
ask which of us is or is not skilled in the art, and has or has not had a
teacher of the art.

NICIAS: Why, Socrates, is not the question whether young men ought or
ought not to learn the art of fighting in armour?

SOCRATES: Yes, Nicias; but there is also a prior question, which I may
illustrate in this way: When a person considers about applying a medicine
to the eyes, would you say that he is consulting about the medicine or
about the eyes?

NICIAS: About the eyes.