which are supposed to make up wealth are only useful to the person who knows how to use them?

ERYXIAS: Exactly.

SOCRATES: And were we not saying before that it was the business of a good man and a gentleman to know where and how anything should be used?

ERYXIAS: Yes.

SOCRATES: The good and gentle, therefore will alone have profit from these things, supposing at least that they know how to use them. But if so, to them only will they seem to be wealth. It appears, however, that where a person is ignorant of riding, and has horses which are useless to him, if some one teaches him that art, he makes him also richer, for what was before useless has now become useful to him, and in giving him knowledge he has also conferred riches upon him.

ERYXIAS: That is the case.

SOCRATES: Yet I dare be sworn that Critias will not be moved a whit by the argument.

CRITIAS: No, by heaven, I should be a madman if I were. But why do you not finish the argument which proves that gold and silver and other things which seem to be wealth are not real wealth? For I have been exceedingly delighted to hear the discourses which you have just been holding.

SOCRATES: My argument, Critias (I said), appears to have given you the same kind of pleasure which you might have derived from some rhapsode's recitation of Homer; for you do not believe a word of what has been said. But come now, give me an answer to this question. Are not certain things useful to the builder when he is building a house?

CRITIAS: They are.

SOCRATES: And would you say that those things are useful which are employed in house building,—stones and bricks and beams and the like, and also the instruments with which the builder built the house, the beams and stones which they provided, and again the instruments by which these were obtained?

CRITIAS: It seems to me that they are all useful for building.

SOCRATES: And is it not true of every art, that not only the materials but the instruments by which we procure them and without which the work could not go on, are useful for that art?

CRITIAS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And further, the instruments by which the instruments are procured, and so on, going back from stage to stage ad infinitum,—are not all these, in your opinion, necessary in order to carry out the work?

CRITIAS: We may fairly suppose such to be the case.

SOCRATES: And if a man has food and drink and clothes and the other things which are useful to the body, would he need gold or silver or any other means by which he could procure that which he now has?

CRITIAS: I do not think so.

SOCRATES: Then you consider that a man never wants any of these things for the use of the body?

CRITIAS: Certainly not.

SOCRATES: And if they appear useless to this end, ought they not always to appear useless? For we have already laid down the principle that things cannot be at one time useful and at another time not, in the same process.

CRITIAS: But in that respect your argument and mine are the same. For you maintain if they are useful to a certain end, they can never become useless; whereas I say that in order to accomplish some results bad things are needed, and good for others.

SOCRATES: But can a bad thing be used to carry out a good purpose?

CRITIAS: I should say not.

SOCRATES: And we call those actions good which a man does for the sake of virtue?

CRITIAS: Yes.

SOCRATES: But can a man learn any kind of knowledge which is imparted by word of mouth if he is wholly deprived of the sense of hearing?

CRITIAS: Certainly not, I think.

SOCRATES: And will not hearing be useful for virtue, if virtue is taught by hearing and we use the sense of hearing in giving instruction?

CRITIAS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And since medicine frees the sick man from his disease, that art too may sometimes appear useful in the acquisition of virtue, e.g. when hearing is procured by the aid of medicine.

CRITIAS: Very likely.

SOCRATES: But if, again, we obtain by wealth the aid of medicine, shall we not regard wealth as useful for virtue?

CRITIAS: True.

SOCRATES: And also the instruments by which wealth is procured?

CRITIAS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: Then you think that a man may gain wealth by bad and disgraceful means, and, having obtained the aid of medicine which enables him to acquire the power of hearing, may use that very faculty for the acquisition of virtue?

CRITIAS: Yes, I do.

SOCRATES: But can that which is evil be useful for virtue?

CRITIAS: No.

SOCRATES: It is not therefore necessary that the means by which we obtain what is useful for a certain object should always be useful for the same object: for it seems that bad actions may sometimes serve good purposes? The matter will be still plainer if we look at it in this way:—If things are useful towards the several ends for which they exist, which ends would not come into existence without them, how would you regard them? Can ignorance, for instance, be useful for knowledge, or disease for health, or vice for virtue?

CRITIAS: Never.

SOCRATES: And yet we have already agreed—have we not?—that there can be no knowledge where there has not previously been ignorance, nor health where there has not been disease, nor virtue where there has not been vice?

CRITIAS: I think that we have.

SOCRATES: But then it would seem that the antecedents without which a thing cannot exist are not necessarily useful to it. Otherwise ignorance would appear useful for knowledge, disease for health, and vice for virtue.

Critias still showed great reluctance to accept any argument which went to prove that all these things were useless. I saw that it was as difficult to persuade him as (according to the proverb) it is to boil a stone, so I said: Let us bid 'good-bye' to the discussion, since we cannot agree whether these things are useful and a part of wealth or not. But what shall we say to another question: Which is the happier and better man,—he who requires the greatest quantity of necessaries for body and diet, or he who requires only the fewest and least? The answer will perhaps become more obvious if we suppose some one, comparing the man himself at different times, to consider whether his condition is better when he is sick or when he is well?

CRITIAS: That is not a question which needs much consideration.

SOCRATES: Probably, I said, every one can understand that health is a better condition than disease. But when have we the greatest and the most various needs, when we are sick or when we are well?

CRITIAS: When we are sick.

SOCRATES: And when we are in the worst state we have the greatest and most especial need and desire of bodily pleasures?

CRITIAS: True.

SOCRATES: And seeing that a man is best off when he is least in need of such things, does not the same reasoning apply to the case of any two persons, of whom one has many and great wants and desires, and the other few and moderate? For instance, some men are gamblers, some drunkards, and some gluttons: and gambling and the love of drink and greediness are all desires?

CRITIAS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: But desires are only the lack of something: and those who have the greatest desires are in a worse condition than those who have none or very slight ones?

CRITIAS: Certainly I consider that those who have such wants are bad, and that the greater their wants the worse they are.

SOCRATES: And do we think it possible that a thing should be useful for a purpose unless we have need of it for that purpose?

CRITIAS: No.

SOCRATES: Then if these things are useful for supplying the needs of the body, we must want them for that purpose?

CRITIAS: That is my opinion.

SOCRATES: And he to whom the greatest number of things are useful for his purpose, will also want the greatest number of means of accomplishing it, supposing that we necessarily feel the want of all