Plato, Meno, section 76c

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[76c] made a note of my weakness for handsome people. So I will indulge you, and answer.

Meno
You must certainly indulge me.

Socrates
Then would you like me to answer you in the manner of Gorgias,¹ which you would find easiest to follow?

Meno
I should like that, of course.

Socrates
Do not both of you say there are certain effluences² of existent things, as Empedocles held?

Meno
Certainly.

Socrates
And passages into which and through which the effluences pass?

Meno
To be sure.

Socrates
And some of the effluences fit into various passages,

1 There is something of Gorgias' stately style in the definition that follows; but the implication seems mainly to be that the substance of it will be familiar to Meno because he was a pupil of Gorgias, who had learnt his science from Empedocles.

2 Empedocles taught that material objects are known to us by means of effluences or films given off by them and suited in various ways to our sense-organs.

Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 3 translated by W.R.M. Lamb. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1967.

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