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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Meno by Plato: in the Republic. In the Gorgias too the statesmen reappear, but in
stronger opposition to the philosopher. They are no longer allowed to have
a divine insight, but, though acknowledged to have been clever men and good
speakers, are denounced as 'blind leaders of the blind.' The doctrine of
the immortality of the soul is also carried further, being made the
foundation not only of a theory of knowledge, but of a doctrine of rewards
and punishments. In the Republic the relation of knowledge to virtue is
described in a manner more consistent with modern distinctions. The
existence of the virtues without the possession of knowledge in the higher
or philosophical sense is admitted to be possible. Right opinion is again
introduced in the Theaetetus as an account of knowledge, but is rejected on
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