manner, which is concerned with the productions of the earth in all times.
As to the art of the general, you yourselves will be my witnesses that he
has an excellent foreknowledge of the future, and that he claims to be the
master and not the servant of the soothsayer, because he knows better what
is happening or is likely to happen in war: and accordingly the law places
the soothsayer under the general, and not the general under the soothsayer.
Am I not correct in saying so, Laches?

LACHES: Quite correct.

SOCRATES: And do you, Nicias, also acknowledge that the same science has
understanding of the same things, whether future, present, or past?

NICIAS: Yes, indeed Socrates; that is my opinion.

SOCRATES: And courage, my friend, is, as you say, a knowledge of the
fearful and of the hopeful?

NICIAS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And the fearful, and the hopeful, are admitted to be future
goods and future evils?

NICIAS: True.

SOCRATES: And the same science has to do with the same things in the
future or at any time?

NICIAS: That is true.