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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Eryxias by Platonic Imitator: use directly for the body in the way that we do food and drink and bedding
and houses,--if without these we could satisfy the wants of the body, they
would be of no use to us for that purpose?
ERYXIAS: They would not.
SOCRATES: They would no longer be regarded as wealth, because they are
useless, whereas that would be wealth which enabled us to obtain what was
useful to us?
ERYXIAS: O Socrates, you will never be able to persuade me that gold and
silver and similar things are not wealth. But I am very strongly of
opinion that things which are useless to us are not wealth, and that the
money which is useful for this purpose is of the greatest use; not that
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