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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Laches by Plato: he knows what courage is, if he could only tell.
Nicias is now appealed to; and in reply he offers a definition which he has
heard from Socrates himself, to the effect that (1) 'Courage is
intelligence.' Laches derides this; and Socrates enquires, 'What sort of
intelligence?' to which Nicias replies, 'Intelligence of things terrible.'
'But every man knows the things to be dreaded in his own art.' 'No they do
not. They may predict results, but cannot tell whether they are really
terrible; only the courageous man can tell that.' Laches draws the
inference that the courageous man is either a soothsayer or a god.
Again, (2) in Nicias' way of speaking, the term 'courageous' must be denied
to animals or children, because they do not know the danger. Against this
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