 Laches’ second try is that courage is a kind of endurance of the soul (192c), But what kind of endurance, foolish or wise? Here Laches enters a tangle; he does not want to say that courage is ever foolish, because then courage would not be reliably kalon, as all those present believe that it is, and the definition would fail the exclusion requirement. Nor does Laches want to say that courage is sophos (wise), since that would entail mastery of the matter at hand, and such mastery seems to render actions less courageous (192c–193e). Unable to see a way out of this tangle, Laches agrees with Socrates that he does not have a good answer.