Laches' first response is the kind most people would give: He defines courage by recalling what to him is the most familiar concrete example of a courageous person: A soldier who bravely stands his ground.

L: What do you mean?

S: I will try to explain. You would call a man courageous who remains at his post and fights against the enemy...What would you say about a man who fights while running away, instead of remaining?...[This is how] the Scythians are said to fight, running away as well as pursuing...

L: You are speaking of Scythian cavalry. Cavalry have that way of fighting, but the heavy armed soldier fights, as I say, remaining in his rank.

S: And yet...you must make an exception of the Spartans at Plataea, who, when they came upon the light shields of the Persians, are said not to have been willing to stand and fight, but to have run the other way. But when the ranks of the Persians broke up, they turned upon them like cavalry, and won the battle of Plataea.

Socrates brings up some counterexamples, to show the inadequacy of Laches' literal-minded definition of courage. It could not serve as a definition of courage that could be consistently applied to all circumstances. Courageous fighting on horseback is not the same as courageous fighting as a heavily armed infantryman. It is often smart tactics for a highly mobile horseback soldier to turn away from an enemy attack, fighting his pursuers as he runs. Further, it is even smart tactics for infantry to sometimes retreat, then regroup and attack. It is hard to say that everyone who runs the other way when an enemy attacks must be lacking in bravery. Being truly courageous is not a matter of consistently following the literal-minded rule: "Always stand your ground and never retreat."

L: Certainly

S: Now all of these are courageous, but some have courage in the face of pleasures and some in the face of pain, some in the face of desires and some in the face of fears. And some are cowards under the same conditions...

L: Very true.

S: I was asking about courage and cowardice in general...What is that common quality which is common in all the above cases and which is called "courage"? Do you understand what I mean?

L: Yes.

Socrates illustrates this point by speaking of "quickness" as a general characteristic exemplified in many different kinds of activities. It turns out to be relatively easy to define neutral, non-moral qualities like this. "Whatever accomplishes much in a little time" seems to be a perfectly adequate general definition of the characteristic "quick," no matter what kind of activity we are talking about. Can we find a comparable way of describing the content of the general term "courage" (or rather, as we shall see, of "good courage").

Laches now comes up with a decent hypothesis: He locates the essence of courage, not in any particular action, but in an internal quality. When he thinks of what all the above examples have in common, he thinks of a certain character trait manifest in a willingness to stick to some task in the face of difficulties, a "tenacity of soul." It is important to notice that, even though Socrates will show that this definition is not yet completely adequate, it is most certainly more adequate that the first definition he proposed. It applies to more cases of courage, and even among infantry fighters, it serves better to differentiate courageous from non-courageous conduct. But note also that, in order to improve on the definition, Laches had to locate true courage in something less easily visible. It is much easier for an external observer to tell whether someone is "standing their ground" than it is to know whether someone has "tenacity of soul."

L: Most noble, certainly.

It is very important to understand properly the comment that "courage is a very noble quality," and the role this kind of comment plays in Socratic discussion. If everything people might call courage were good and noble – or if everything a dictionary defines as "courage" were good and noble – then this whole discussion would be unnecessary. The fact that many things commonly called "courage" are not good is what makes Socratic inquiry necessary. "Courage is noble" states an assumption about the goal of Socratic discussion, which is to try to define that kind of courage which is always noble – which turns out to be quite difficult.

The question guiding the discussion is not, then, "What is courage?" The question, stated more exactly, is "What is good courage?" What is the essential ingredient that makes any act of courage something truly good and admirable? If we knew what this ingredient was, then we could consistently adhere to this, and be assured that what we are doing exemplifies truly good courage, no matter how it appeared to other people.

L: True.

S: And is anything noble which is bad and hurtful

L: I ought not to say that, Socrates.

S: Then you would not admit that that sort of tenacity is courage – for it is not noble, but courage is noble?

L: You are right.

S: Then, according to you, only smart tenacity is courage?

L: It seems so.

What starts Socrates on this new line of argument seems to be the fact that it is obviously not always smart to be tenacious. For example, suppose a soldier is faced with overwhelming odds and almost certain defeat, but he could retreat, wait for reinforcements, and attack with better chances of success. A soldier who decides to literal-mindedly follow the rule "Always stand your ground," might be showing a certain kind of courage, but this is a kind of "dumb courage." The "smart courage" shown by the soldier who retreats and then counterattacks from a stronger position seems a more admirable kind of courage. One might be tempted to conclude from this that "doing the smart thing" is the essence of good courage.

L: Assuredly not.

S: Or, for example if a man is a doctor, and his son or some patient of his has inflammation of the lungs, and begs that he may be allowed to eat or drink something, and the other is inflexible and refuses, is that courage?

L: No, that is not courage at all, any more than the last.

S: Again, take the case of one who shows tenacity in war and is willing to fight. He is smart - he calculates and realizes that there are others who will help him, and that there will be fewer and inferior men against him than there are with him, and suppose that he has also advantage in position. What would you say of such a person who shows tenacity with all this smart preparation? Is it he that is courageous, or some man in the opposing army who is in the opposite circumstances to these and yet tenaciously remains at his post?

L: That is true.

S: Then you would say that the person who is tenacious in an engagement of cavalry, being a skilled horseman, is not courageous as he who sticks to it even though he is not as skilled?

L: So I should say...

S: And he who descends into a well, and dives, and holds out in this or any similar action, having no skill in diving or the like, is, as you would say, more courageous than those who have this skill?

L: Why, Socrates, what else can a man say?

S: And yet men who thus run risks and endure are not as smart as those who do the same things having the skill to do them.

L: That is true.

S: But boldness and tenacity that was not smart appeared to us before to be inferior and hurtful?

L: Quite true.

S: Whereas courage was acknowledged to be a noble quality.

L: True.

S: And now on the contrary we are saying that tenacity that is not smart, which was before held in dishonor, is courage.

L: So we are.

S: And are we right in saying so?

L: Indeed, Socrates, I am sure that we are not right...

S: And is this condition of ours satisfactory?

L: To what extent and what principle do you mean?

S: The principle of tenacity. If you agree, we must stick to it and persevere in the inquiry, and then courage will not laugh at our faintheartedness in searching for courage, which after all may frequently be tenacity.

L: I am ready to go on, Socrates, and yet I am unused to investigations of this sort. But the spirit of controversy has been aroused in me by what has been said, and I am really upset at being thus unable to express my meaning. For I thought that I do know the essence of courage, but, somehow or other, she has slipped away from me, and I cannot get hold of her and tell her essence.

S: But, my dear friend, should not the good hunter follow the track, and not give up?