so as to do any thing else but what knowledge bids him. Yet there are some who say that they are overcome by pleasure or pain; but what is it to be overcome by pleasure? nothing else than to choose present pleasure which will result in greater evil; in other words, to embrace a greater evil rather than a greater good; they, therefore, who are overcome by pleasure are so from ignorance[1].
Having established this, Socrates recurs to the statement of Protagoras, that courage differs from the other parts of virtue, because the most unholy, most unjust, most intemperate, and most ignorant men, are sometimes most courageous. It is admitted that no one willingly exposes himself to things that he believes to be evil; a brave man, therefore, incurs dangers which he knows to be honourable and good, and therefore pleasant, and is influenced by no base fear, nor inspired with base confidence; but the coward, on the contrary, is influenced by base fear and inspired by base confidence; he errs, therefore, through ignorance and want of knowledge, whence it follows that courage is contained in knowledge. The result of the whole is that virtue, since it consists in knowledge, can be taught, and so it turns out that Socrates, who began by maintaining that it could not be taught, has been arguing all along that it can, and Protagoras, who asserted that it could be taught, has been arguing that it cannot.
- ↑ § 91–118.
