Dialogue

 1  Meno|   renewed. Again he professes a desire to know ‘what virtue is’
 2  Meno|       of them—that mankind only desire evil through ignorance; (
 3  Meno|         inspired with an ardent desire of knowledge, and is equally
 4  Meno|        virtue as ‘the power and desire of attaining things honourable,’
 5  Meno|       work is due mainly to the desire to bring together in a single
 6  Meno|       on to say: That is what I desire to know, Meno; tell me what
 7  Meno|         say too—~‘Virtue is the desire of things honourable and
 8  Meno|     desires the honourable also desire the good?~MENO: Certainly.~
 9  Meno|         Then are there some who desire the evil and others who
10  Meno|         the evil and others who desire the good? Do not all men,
11  Meno|       not all men, my dear sir, desire good?~MENO: I think not.~
12  Meno|    SOCRATES: There are some who desire evil?~MENO: Yes.~SOCRATES:
13  Meno|      think the evils which they desire, to be good; or do they
14  Meno|      that they are evil and yet desire them?~MENO: Both, I think.~
15  Meno|   Certainly I do.~SOCRATES: And desire is of possession?~MENO:
16  Meno| ignorant of their nature do not desire them; but they desire what
17  Meno|       not desire them; but they desire what they suppose to be
18  Meno|         to be goods they really desire goods?~MENO: Yes, in that
19  Meno|       do those who, as you say, desire evils, and think that evils
20  Meno|      SOCRATES: And does any one desire to be miserable and ill-fated?~
21  Meno|      for what is misery but the desire and possession of evil?~
22  Meno|     just now that virtue is the desire and power of attaining good?~
23  Meno|      this be affirmed, then the desire of good is common to all,