material I mean the substratum out of which any work is made; thus
wool is the material of the weaver, bronze of the statuary. Now it
is easy to see that the art of household management is not identical
with the art of getting wealth, for the one uses the material which
the other provides. For the art which uses household stores can be
no other than the art of household management. There is, however, a
doubt whether the art of getting wealth is a part of household
management or a distinct art. If the getter of wealth has to
consider whence wealth and property can be procured, but there are
many sorts of property and riches, then are husbandry, and the care
and provision of food in general, parts of the wealth-getting art or
distinct arts? Again, there are many sorts of food, and therefore
there are many kinds of lives both of animals and men; they must all
have food, and the differences in their food have made differences
in their ways of life. For of beasts, some are gregarious, others
are solitary; they live in the way which is best adapted to sustain
them, accordingly as they are carnivorous or herbivorous or
omnivorous: and their habits are determined for them by nature in such
a manner that they may obtain with greater facility the food of
their choice. But, as different species have different tastes, the
same things are not naturally pleasant to all of them; and therefore
the lives of carnivorous or herbivorous animals further differ among
themselves. In the lives of men too there is a great difference. The
laziest are shepherds, who lead an idle life, and get their
subsistence without trouble from tame animals; their flocks having
to wander from place to place in search of pasture, they are compelled
to follow them, cultivating a sort of living farm. Others support
themselves by hunting, which is of different kinds. Some, for example,
are brigands, others, who dwell near lakes or marshes or rivers or a
sea in which there are fish, are fishermen, and others live by the
pursuit of birds or wild beasts. The greater number obtain a living
from the cultivated fruits of the soil. Such are the modes of
subsistence which prevail among those whose industry springs up of
itself, and whose food is not acquired by exchange and retail trade-
there is the shepherd, the husbandman, the brigand, the fisherman, the
hunter. Some gain a comfortable maintenance out of two employments,
eking out the deficiencies of one of them by another: thus the life of
a shepherd may be combined with that of a brigand, the life of a
farmer with that of a hunter. Other modes of life are similarly
combined in any way which the needs of men may require. Property, in
the sense of a bare livelihood, seems to be given by nature herself to
all, both when they are first born, and when they are grown up. For
some animals bring forth, together with their offspring, so much
food as will last until they are able to supply themselves; of this
the vermiparous or oviparous animals are an instance; and the
viviparous animals have up to a certain time a supply of food for
their young in themselves, which is called milk. In like manner we may
infer that, after the birth of animals, plants exist for their sake,
and that the other animals exist for the sake of man, the tame for use
and food, the wild, if not all at least the greater part of them,
for food, and for the provision of clothing and various instruments.
Now if nature makes nothing incomplete, and nothing in vain, the
inference must be that she has made all animals for the sake of man.
And so, in one point of view, the art of war is a natural art of
acquisition, for the art of acquisition includes hunting, an art which
we ought to practice against wild beasts, and against men who,
though intended by nature to be governed, will not submit; for war
of such a kind is naturally just.

  Of the art of acquisition then there is one kind which by nature
is a part of the management of a household, in so far as the art of
household management must either find ready to hand, or itself
provide, such things necessary to life, and useful for the community
of the family or state, as can be stored. They are the elements of
true riches; for the amount of property which is needed for a good
life is not unlimited, although Solon in one of his poems says that

     No bound to riches has been fixed for man.

But there is a boundary fixed, just as there is in the other arts; for
the instruments of any art are never unlimited, either in number or
size, and riches may be defined as a number of instruments to be
used in a household or in a state. And so we see that there is a
natural art of acquisition which is practiced by managers of
households and by statesmen, and what is the reason of this.

                                    IX

  There is another variety of the art of acquisition which is commonly
and rightly called an art of wealth-getting, and has in fact suggested
the notion that riches and property have no limit. Being nearly
connected with the preceding, it is often identified with it. But
though they are not very different, neither are they the same. The
kind already described is given by nature, the other is gained by
experience and art.

  Let us begin our discussion of the question with the following
considerations:

  Of everything which we possess there are two uses: both belong to
the thing as such, but not in the same manner, for one is the
proper, and the other the improper or secondary use of it. For
example, a shoe is used for wear, and is used for exchange; both are
uses of the shoe. He who gives a shoe in exchange for money or food to
him who wants one, does indeed use the shoe as a shoe, but this is not
its proper or primary purpose, for a shoe is not made to be an
object of barter. The same may be said of all possessions, for the art
of exchange extends to all of them, and it arises at first from what
is natural, from the circumstance that some have too little, others
too much. Hence we may infer that retail trade is not a natural part