 Laches’ tangle requires someone to specify the kind of wisdom that courage requires, and Nicias is prepared to do that. Courage, he proposes, is knowledge of what should inspire terror or confidence in war or any other circumstance (195a). Socrates then understands this to be knowledge of future goods and evils. This, as we shall see, is very similar to the definition that Socrates will give to Protagoras in the Protagoras (360d). Even so, the proposal will go down to defeat. Knowledge of good and evil is not carved up by temporal words such as “future,”and knowledge of good and evil plainly embraces far more than courage; indeed, it would be the whole of virtue (199e). But Nicias has been clear that courage is only a part of virtue (198a, from 190cd). So he too has failed to establish that he knows what courage is.