Arnobius — Against the Nations 2.24
24.1. Why in the Meno, O Plato, do you ask a little boy things fitted to the reasonings of number and try from his answers to prove that we do not learn but return into the memory of what we knew of old? If he answers you truly—for it is not fitting for us to refuse faith to the things you say—he is led not by knowledge of things but by intelligence, and from the fact that he has some numbers known from daily uses it comes about that he follows when asked and the very addition of multiplication always leads him on.
2. But if you truly trust that immortal souls fly hither full of knowledge, stop asking that adolescent whom you see acquainted with affairs and set within the bounds of humanity: call to yourself that forty-year-old and ask from him not something abstruse, not wrapped up, not about triangles or squares, what a cube or a power is, a sesquioctave or a final sesquitertian, but what sits in the middle—ask what sum twice two, twice three make.
3. We wish to see, we wish to know, what he answers when asked, whether he resolves the sought question. Will he then feel, though his ears lie open, whether you are saying something, asking something, or demanding that something be answered you from him? And will he not stand speechless and mute like some log or, as it is said, a Marpesian cliff, ignorant and not knowing this very thing—whether you are conversing with yourself or with another, whether that is speech which you put forth or a sound of voice signifying nothing of things but drawn out in empty continuation?
Latin
24.1. Quid in Menone, o Plato [Plato, Men. 82], quaedam rationibus numeri admota ex puerculo sciscitaris et ex eius niteris responsionibus comprobare, quae discamus non discere sed in eorum memoriam quae antiquitus noveramus redire? Qui si tibi vere respondet - non enim nos convenit fidem rebus abiudicare quas dicis - non rerum scientia sed intellegentia ducitur, et ex eo quod aliquos numeros cottidianis habet ex usibus notos fit ut sequatur rogatus et ipsa illum semper multipilicationis adducat accessio.
2. Quodsi vere confidis immortales huc animas et plenas scientiae pervolare, adulescentulum istum rogare desinito, quem esse conspicis gnarum rerum et humanitatis esse in finibus constitutum: quadragenarium istum ad te voca et ex eo percontare non abstrusum aliquid, non involutum, non de triangulis, non de quadratis, quid sit cubus aut dynamis, sesqueoctavus aut sesquetertius ultimus , sed quod in medio situm est, bis bina, bis terna quam efficiant summulam quaerito.
3. Volumus videre, volumus scire, quid rogatus respondeat, an inquisitam expediat quaestionem. Ita ille sensurus est, quamvis ei pateant aures, an aliquid dicas, an aliquid quaeras, an tibi ab sese responderi aliquid postules? Et non stipes ut aliquis aut Marpesia ut dictum est [Verg. Aen. 6, 471] rupes stabit elinguis et mutus, hoc ipsum ignorans et nesciens, secum potius an cum altero conloquaris, cum altero sermocineris an secum, oratio sit ista quam promis an sonitus vocis nihil rerum significans sed inani continuatione pertractus?