Do you observe that here he seems to imply that virtue can be taught?
MENO: Clearly.
SOCRATES: But in some other verses he shifts about and says (Theog.):
'If understanding could be created and put into a man, then they' (who were able to perform this feat) 'would have obtained great rewards.'
And again:—
'Never would a bad son have sprung from a good sire, for he would have heard the voice of instruction; but not by teaching will you ever make a bad man into a good one.'
And this, as you may remark, is a contradiction of the other.
MENO: Clearly.
SOCRATES: And is there anything else of which the professors are affirmed not only not to be teachers of others, but to be ignorant themselves, and bad at the knowledge of that which they are professing to teach? or is there anything about which even the acknowledged 'gentlemen' are sometimes saying that 'this thing can be taught,' and sometimes the opposite? Can you say that they are teachers in any true sense whose ideas are in such confusion?
MENO: I should say, certainly not.