MENO: I should.
SOCRATES: You only assert that the round figure SOCRATES: And if he had said, Tell me what they is not more a figure than the straight, or the are?—you would have told him of other colours straight than the round?
which are colours just as much as whiteness.
MENO: Very true.
MENO: Yes.
SOCRATES: To what then do we give the name of SOCRATES: And suppose that he were to pursue figure? Try and answer. Suppose that when a the matter in my way, he would say: Ever and person asked you this question either about fig-anon we are landed in particulars, but this is not ure or colour, you were to reply, Man, I do not what I want; tell me then, since you call them by understand what you want, or know what you a common name, and say that they are all fig-are saying; he would look rather astonished and ures, even when opposed to one another, what is say: Do you not understand that I am looking for that common nature which you designate as fig-the ‘simile in multis’? And then he might put ure—which contains straight as well as round, and the question in another form: Meno, he might is no more one than the other—that would be your say, what is that ‘simile in multis’ which you mode of speaking?
call figure, and which includes not only round MENO: Yes.
and straight figures, but all? Could you not an-SOCRATES: And in speaking thus, you do not swer that question, Meno? I wish that you would mean to say that the round is round any more try; the attempt will be good practice with a view than straight, or the straight any more straight to the answer about virtue.
than round?
MENO: I would rather that you should answer, MENO: Certainly not.
Socrates.