ave 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 the