[870a]
how many these causes are likely to be. The greatest is lust, which masters a soul that is made savage by desires; and it occurs especially in connection with that object for which the most frequent and intense craving afflicts the bulk of men,—the power which wealth possesses over them, owing to the badness of their nature and lack of culture, to breed in them countless lustings after its insatiable and endless acquisition. And of this lack of culture the cause is to be found in the ill-praising of wealth in the common talk of both Greeks and barbarians; for by exalting it as the first of “goods,”1
Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vols. 10 & 11 translated by R.G. Bury. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1967 & 1968.
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