SOCRATES: Then gold and silver and all the other elements 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