Various definitions are given of Temperance; and all are rejected; but the dialogue falls into the same track as the Laches, in putting forward the supreme science of good and evil.

It is a happy example of the Sokratic manner and purpose, of exposing the conceit of knowledge, the fancy that people understand the meaning of the general terms habitually employed.
LYSIS on _Friendship_, or Love, might be expected to furnish some ethical openings, but it is rather a piece of dialectic, without result, farther than to impart the consciousness of ignorance.

If it suggests anything positive, it is the Idea of Good, as the ultimate end of affection.

The subject is one of special interest in ancient Ethics, as being one of the aspects of Benevolent sentiment in the Pagan world.

In Aristotle we first find a definite handling of it.
MENON may be considered as pre-eminently ethical in its design.