The Complete Aristotle (eng.)

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 of the art of getting wealth; had it been so,
men would have ceased to exchange when they had enough. In the
first community, indeed, which is the family, this art is obviously
of no use, but it begins to be useful when the society increases.
For the members of the family originally had all things in common;
later, when the family divided into parts, the parts shared in many
things, and different parts in different things, which they had to
give in exchange for what they wanted, a kind of barter which is
still practiced among barbarous nations who exchange with one
another the necessaries of life and nothing more; giving and
receiving wine, for example, in exchange for coin, and the like.
This sort of barter is not part of the wealth-getting art and is
not contrary to nature, but is needed for the satisfaction of men’s
natural wants. The other or more complex form of exchange grew, as
might have been inferred, out of the simpler. When the inhabitants
of one country became more dependent on those of another, and they
imported what they needed, and exported what they had too much of,
money necessarily came into use. For the various necessaries of
life are not easily carried about, and hence men agreed to employ
in their dealings with each other something which was intrinsically
useful and easily applicable to the purposes of life, for example,
iron, silver, and the like. Of this the value was at first measured
simply by size and weight, but in process of time they put a stamp
upon it, to save the trouble of weighing and to mark the value.
    When the use of coin had once been discovered, out of the barter
of necessary