SOCRATES: And therefore conditions which are not required for the
existence of a thing are not useful for the production of it?

ERYXIAS: Of course not.

SOCRATES: And if without gold or silver or anything else which we do not
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
these things are not useful towards life, if by them we can procure wealth.

SOCRATES: And how would you answer another question? There are persons,
are there not, who teach music and grammar and other arts for pay, and thus
procure those things of which they stand in need?

ERYXIAS: There are.

SOCRATES: And these men by the arts which they profess, and in exchange