*54* Suppose again that an honest man is offering a house for sale on
account of certain undesirable features of which he himself is aware but
which nobody else knows; suppose it is unsanitary, but has the
reputation of being healthful; suppose it is not generally known that
vermin are to be found in all the bedrooms; suppose, finally, that it is
built of unsound timber and likely to collapse, but that no one knows
about it except the owner; if the vendor does not tell the purchaser
these facts but sells him the house for far more than he could
reasonably have expected to get for it, I ask whether his transaction is
unjust or dishonourable.
*55* "Yes," says Antipater, "it is; for to allow a purchaser to be hasty
in closing a deal and through mistaken judgment to incur a very serious
loss, if this is not refusing 'to set a man right when he has lost his
way' (a crime which at Athens is prohibited on pain of public
execration), what is? It is even worse than refusing to set a man on
his way: it is deliberately leading a man astray."
*(55)* "Can you say," answers Diogenes, "that he compelled you to
purchase, when he did not even advise it? He advertised for sale what he
did not like; you bought what you did like. If people are not considered
guilty of swindling when they place upon their placards FOR SALE: A FINE
VILLA, WELL BUILT, even when it is neither good nor properly built,
still less guilty are they who say nothing in praise of their house. For
where the purchaser may exercise his own judgment, what fraud can there
be on the part of the vendor? But if, again, not all that is expressly
stated has to be made good, do you think a man is bound to make good
what has not been said? What, pray, would be more stupid than for a
vendor to recount all the faults in the article he is offering for sale?
And what would be so absurd as for an auctioneer to cry, at the owner's
bidding, 'Here is an unsanitary house for sale?'"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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