The Hipparchus

Socrates: What is the love, and who are the lovers of gain?

Hipparchus: It appears to me that those are lovers of gain, who think it worth while to acquire wealth from things of no worth.

Socrates: Whether therefore do they appear to you to do this in consequence of knowing, or being ignorant that these are things of no worth? For if they do this through ignorance, you call the lovers of gain stupid.

Hipparchus: But I do not call them stupid, but perfectly crafty and base; men who are vanquished by gain, who know that the things from which they have the boldness to acquire wealth, are of no worth, and yet at the same time, through their impudence, dare to love gain.

Socrates: Do you, therefore, call a character of the following kind a lover of gain? I mean, as if a husbandman, planting a tree or herb, and knowing that it is of no worth, should nevertheless think it worth while to enrich himself from the cultivation of such a plant? Do you call such a one as this a lover of gain?

Hipparchus: A lover of gain, Socrates, thinks he ought to enrich himself from every thing.

Socrates: Do not thus rashly answer me, like a man who has been injured by some one; but, attending to what I say, answer me as if I should again interrogate you from the beginning. Do you agree with me, that a lover of gain knows the value of that thing whence he thinks it worth while to enrich himself?

Hipparchus: I do.

Socrates: Who then is he that has a knowledge of the worth of plants; and who likewise knows in what region, and at what time of the year it is worth while to plant them? that we also may adopt something from those words of the wise, which lawyers employ for the sake of elegance.

Hipparchus: A husbandman, I think.

Socrates: Do you, therefore, say that the term, It is worth while to acquire wealth, is any thing else than to think that it is requisite to acquire wealth?

Hipparchus: I say it is this very thing.

Socrates: Do not therefore you, who are so young, endeavour to deceive me, who am now an elderly man, by answering, as you do at present, what you by no means think; but answer me truly, whether you think that the man who is a husbandman, and who knows that it is not worth while to set a certain plant, will yet expect to be enriched by such a plant?

Hipparchus: By Jupiter, not I.

Socrates: What then? Will a jockey who knows that the food which he gives a horse is of no worth, be ignorant that by such food he will destroy the horse?

Hipparchus: I do not think he will.

Socrates: He will not, therefore, think that from such aliment as this, which is of no worth, he shall be enriched.