" But for now, if
we have been right in how we investigated and what we said, virtue turns out to be
neither innate nor earned. It is something that comes to those who possess it as a free
gift from the gods – with understanding not included; unless, that is, you can point to
some statesmen who could make another man a statesman. If there were such a one, he
could be said to rank among the living as Homer said Teiresias ranked among the dead:
namely, ‘he alone kept his wits collected while the others flitted about like shadows.’
In the same way such a man would, as far as virtue is concerned, stand forth as
someone of substance – opposed, as it were, to mere shadows.

M: I think that is an excellent way to put it, Socrates

S: It follows from this whole line of reasoning, Meno, that virtue appears present in
those who have it only as a gift from the gods. We will only really know about this,
however, if and when we try to investigate what virtue itself is – an investigation that
must come before that of how it comes to be in men. But the time has come for me to go. "

― Plato , Meno