The _Eryxias_ hints at a definition of capital in the distinction between the direct consumption of wealth and its use for further production.[972] But it is far from the author’s purpose to define capital, and he makes nothing of the distinction. The relation of money to wealth is also dealt with incidentally. Like Aristotle, he criticizes the definition of wealth as “the possession of much money,”[973] on the ground that the money of one country may not pass current in another, and hence cannot be true wealth.[974] This is suggestive of the Cynic theory of fiat money, since the examples used are those of the worthless currency of Carthage, Sparta, and Ethiopia.[975] But the argument proves too much, since it would be equally as effective against counting the house of Polytion as true wealth. There is, moreover, a peculiar shift in this part of the dialogue between money and property. The theory of the author is further upheld by the argument that a condition can be conceived in which our bodily needs might be supplied without silver or gold, in which case these metals would be worthless.[976] However, the necessity of intrinsic value for international currency is recognized,[977] and it seems hardly probable that the purpose of the dialogue was to contend that money is never wealth, since the very implication of the argument is that current money is wealth.[978] TELES The fragments of Teles exhibit the same extreme asceticism of the Cynics in relation to wealth.[979] His main thesis is that the possession of money does not free from want and need.[980] Many who have great possessions do not use them, because of stinginess and sordidness.[981] But if wealth is not used, it is useless, and cannot free from need or want.[982] Here we meet a different application of the criterion of “use” from that with which we have become familiar in the Socratics, the _Eryxias_, and Ruskin. It is based on refusal, rather than inability to use, though the other idea is in the background. The author argues further that wealth does not free from need, because the wealthy life is always insatiate (ἄπληστος),[983] and wealth does not change the disposition,[984] by which change alone the life can be freed from need and slavery.[985] To try to accomplish this by wealth is like attempting to cure a patient of dropsy by stuffing him with water until he bursts.[986] Counsel is given, therefore, not to turn one’s sons to the acquisition of wealth, but to study under Crates, who can set them free from the vice of insatiety.[987]