man this knowledge? He had never learnt geometry in this world; nor was it
born with him; he must therefore have had it when he was not a man. And as
he always either was or was not a man, he must have always had it.
(Compare Phaedo.)

After Socrates has given this specimen of the true nature of teaching, the
original question of the teachableness of virtue is renewed. Again he
professes a desire to know 'what virtue is' first. But he is willing to
argue the question, as mathematicians say, under an hypothesis. He will
assume that if virtue is knowledge, then virtue can be taught. (This was
the stage of the argument at which the Protagoras concluded.)

Socrates has no difficulty in showing that virtue is a good, and that
goods, whether of body or mind, must be under the direction of knowledge.
Upon the assumption just made, then, virtue is teachable. But where are
the teachers? There are none to be found. This is extremely discouraging.
Virtue is no sooner discovered to be teachable, than the discovery follows
that it is not taught. Virtue, therefore, is and is not teachable.

In this dilemma an appeal is made to Anytus, a respectable and well-to-do
citizen of the old school, and a family friend of Meno, who happens to be
present. He is asked 'whether Meno shall go to the Sophists and be
taught.' The suggestion throws him into a rage. 'To whom, then, shall
Meno go?' asks Socrates. To any Athenian gentleman--to the great Athenian
statesmen of past times. Socrates replies here, as elsewhere (Laches,
Prot.), that Themistocles, Pericles, and other great men, had sons to whom
they would surely, if they could have done so, have imparted their own
political wisdom; but no one ever heard that these sons of theirs were
remarkable for anything except riding and wrestling and similar
accomplishments. Anytus is angry at the imputation which is cast on his