As the discussion with Meno draws to an end, Socrates suggests one option they have not considered.  Perhaps true opinion would be no less valuable as a guide for doing the right thing than knowledge.  As an example, Socrates points out that having the right opinion of how to arrive at Larisa (a city in Meno’s land of Thessaly) will be no less helpful in arriving there than having first-hand knowledge.  He concedes that opinion is less reliable, because true opinion can be called into doubt if it is not “tied down” so as to constitute knowledge.  Perhaps wise statesmen are in the position of having true opinion about governing, so that they do the right thing, even if they lack certain knowledge. 

This leaves open the possibility that in a war of opinions, the most popular one will be true and valuable. Perhaps the sophists are right after all. What is important in politics will be, not expertise, but some sort of intuition.

If that is so, Socrates says, “virtue would come neither by nature nor by teaching to whoever has it, but as a divine endowment (theia moira) without understanding—unless some political expert were such as to make another person an expert.”  If so, he would be like Teiresias among the ignorant shades of the dead in Homer’s Odyssey.  “By this reckoning, Meno,” Socrates repeats, “virtue comes by divine endowment (theia moira) to whoever has it.”[17]  But, he warns, we will not know anything for sure until we correctly define virtue. 

Socrates announces that it is time for him to be going, but Meno should endeavor to persuade Anytus along these lines so as to pacify him.

[17] Plato Meno 99e-100b.