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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: 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
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