[219e]
value anything else highly at the same time? For instance, on learning that he had drunk some hemlock, would he value wine highly if he believed it would save his son's life? Why, of course, he said. And the vessel too which contained the wine? Certainly. Now does he make no distinction in value, at that moment, between a cup of earthenware and his own son, or between three pints of wine and his son? Or may we perhaps state it thus: all such concern is not entertained for the actual things which are applied for the sake of something, but for that something for whose sake all the rest are applied?
Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 8 translated by W.R.M. Lamb. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1955.
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