No More Learning

Now it is
thought that each loves what is good for himself, and that the good is
without qualification lovable, and what is good for each man is
lovable for him; but each man loves not what is good for him but
what seems good. This however will make no difference; we shall just
have to say that this is 'that which seems lovable'. Now there are
three grounds on which people love; of the love of lifeless objects we
do not use the word 'friendship'; for it is not mutual love, nor is
there a wishing of good to the other (for it would surely be
ridiculous to wish wine well; if one wishes anything for it, it is
that it may keep, so that one may have it oneself); but to a friend we
say we ought to wish what is good for his sake. But to those who
thus wish good we ascribe only goodwill, if the wish is not
reciprocated; goodwill when it is reciprocal being friendship. Or must
we add 'when it is recognized'? For many people have goodwill to those
whom they have not seen but judge to be good or useful; and one of
these might return this feeling. These people seem to bear goodwill to
each other; but how could one call them friends when they do not
know their mutual feelings? To be friends, then, the must be
mutually recognized as bearing goodwill and wishing well to each other
for one of the aforesaid reasons.

3

Now these reasons differ from each other in kind; so, therefore,
do the corresponding forms of love and friendship. There are therefore
three kinds of friendship, equal in number to the things that are
lovable; for with respect to each there is a mutual and recognized
love, and those who love each other wish well to each other in that
respect in which they love one another. Now those who love each
other for their utility do not love each other for themselves but in
virtue of some good which they get from each other. So too with
those who love for the sake of pleasure; it is not for their character
that men love ready-witted people, but because they find them
pleasant. Therefore those who love for the sake of utility love for
the sake of what is good for themselves, and those who love for the
sake of pleasure do so for the sake of what is pleasant to themselves,
and not in so far as the other is the person loved but in so far as he
is useful or pleasant. And thus these friendships are only incidental;
for it is not as being the man he is that the loved person is loved,
but as providing some good or pleasure. Such friendships, then, are
easily dissolved, if the parties do not remain like themselves; for if
the one party is no longer pleasant or useful the other ceases to love
him.

Now the useful is not permanent but is always changing. Thus when
the motive of the friendship is done away, the friendship is
dissolved, inasmuch as it existed only for the ends in question.
This kind of friendship seems to exist chiefly between old people (for
at that age people pursue not the pleasant but the useful) and, of
those who are in their prime or young, between those who pursue
utility. And such people do not live much with each other either;
for sometimes they do not even find each other pleasant; therefore
they do not need such companionship unless they are useful to each
other; for they are pleasant to each other only in so far as they
rouse in each other hopes of something good to come. Among such
friendships people also class the friendship of a host and guest. On
the other hand the friendship of young people seems to aim at
pleasure; for they live under the guidance of emotion, and pursue
above all what is pleasant to themselves and what is immediately
before them; but with increasing age their pleasures become different.
This is why they quickly become friends and quickly cease to be so;
their friendship changes with the object that is found pleasant, and
such pleasure alters quickly. Young people are amorous too; for the
greater part of the friendship of love depends on emotion and aims
at pleasure; this is why they fall in love and quickly fall out of
love, changing often within a single day. But these people do wish
to spend their days and lives together; for it is thus that they
attain the purpose of their friendship.

Perfect friendship is the friendship of men who are good, and
alike in virtue; for these wish well alike to each other qua good, and
they are good themselves. Now those who wish well to their friends for
their sake are most truly friends; for they do this by reason of own
nature and not incidentally; therefore their friendship lasts as
long as they are good-and goodness is an enduring thing. And each is
good without qualification and to his friend, for the good are both
good without qualification and useful to each other. So too they are
pleasant; for the good are pleasant both without qualification and
to each other, since to each his own activities and others like them
are pleasurable, and the actions of the good are the same or like. And
such a friendship is as might be expected permanent, since there
meet in it all the qualities that friends should have. For all
friendship is for the sake of good or of pleasure-good or pleasure
either in the abstract or such as will be enjoyed by him who has the
friendly feeling-and is based on a certain resemblance; and to a
friendship of good men all the qualities we have named belong in
virtue of the nature of the friends themselves; for in the case of
this kind of friendship the other qualities also are alike in both
friends, and that which is good without qualification is also
without qualification pleasant, and these are the most lovable
qualities. Love and friendship therefore are found most and in their
best form between such men.

But it is natural that such friendships should be infrequent; for
such men are rare. Further, such friendship requires time and
familiarity; as the proverb says, men cannot know each other till they
have 'eaten salt together'; nor can they admit each other to
friendship or be friends till each has been found lovable and been
trusted by each. Those who quickly show the marks of friendship to
each other wish to be friends, but are not friends unless they both
are lovable and know the fact; for a wish for friendship may arise
quickly, but friendship does not.

4

This kind of friendship, then, is perfect both in respect of
duration and in all other respects, and in it each gets from each in
all respects the same as, or something like what, he gives; which is
what ought to happen between friends. Friendship for the sake of
pleasure bears a resemblance to this kind; for good people too are
pleasant to each other. So too does friendship for the sake of
utility; for the good are also useful to each other. Among men of
these inferior sorts too, friendships are most permanent when the
friends get the same thing from each other (e. g. pleasure), and not
only that but also from the same source, as happens between
readywitted people, not as happens between lover and beloved. For
these do not take pleasure in the same things, but the one in seeing
the beloved and the other in receiving attentions from his lover;
and when the bloom of youth is passing the friendship sometimes passes
too (for the one finds no pleasure in the sight of the other, and
the other gets no attentions from the first); but many lovers on the
other hand are constant, if familiarity has led them to love each
other's characters, these being alike. But those who exchange not
pleasure but utility in their amour are both less truly friends and
less constant. Those who are friends for the sake of utility part when
the advantage is at an end; for they were lovers not of each other but
of profit.

For the sake of pleasure or utility, then, even bad men may be
friends of each other, or good men of bad, or one who is neither
good nor bad may be a friend to any sort of person, but for their
own sake clearly only good men can be friends; for bad men do not
delight in each other unless some advantage come of the relation.

The friendship of the good too and this alone is proof against
slander; for it is not easy to trust any one talk about a man who
has long been tested by oneself; and it is among good men that trust
and the feeling that 'he would never wrong me' and all the other
things that are demanded in true friendship are found. In the other
kinds of friendship, however, there is nothing to prevent these
evils arising. For men apply the name of friends even to those whose
motive is utility, in which sense states are said to be friendly
(for the alliances of states seem to aim at advantage), and to those
who love each other for the sake of pleasure, in which sense
children are called friends. Therefore we too ought perhaps to call
such people friends, and say that there are several kinds of
friendship-firstly and in the proper sense that of good men qua
good, and by analogy the other kinds; for it is in virtue of something
good and something akin to what is found in true friendship that
they are friends, since even the pleasant is good for the lovers of
pleasure. But these two kinds of friendship are not often united,
nor do the same people become friends for the sake of utility and of
pleasure; for things that are only incidentally connected are not
often coupled together.

Friendship being divided into these kinds, bad men will be friends
for the sake of pleasure or of utility, being in this respect like
each other, but good men will be friends for their own sake, i. e. in
virtue of their goodness. These, then, are friends without
qualification; the others are friends incidentally and through a
resemblance to these.

5

As in regard to the virtues some men are called good in respect of a
state of character, others in respect of an activity, so too in the
case of friendship; for those who live together delight in each
other and confer benefits on each other, but those who are asleep or
locally separated are not performing, but are disposed to perform, the
activities of friendship; distance does not break off the friendship
absolutely, but only the activity of it. But if the absence is
lasting, it seems actually to make men forget their friendship;
hence the saying 'out of sight, out of mind'. Neither old people nor
sour people seem to make friends easily; for there is little that is
pleasant in them, and no one can spend his days with one whose company
is painful, or not pleasant, since nature seems above all to avoid the
painful and to aim at the pleasant. Those, however, who approve of
each other but do not live together seem to be well-disposed rather
than actual friends. For there is nothing so characteristic of friends
as living together (since while it people who are in need that
desire benefits, even those who are supremely happy desire to spend
their days together; for solitude suits such people least of all); but
people cannot live together if they are not pleasant and do not
enjoy the same things, as friends who are companions seem to do.

The truest friendship, then, is that of the good, as we have
frequently said; for that which is without qualification good or
pleasant seems to be lovable and desirable, and for each person that
which is good or pleasant to him; and the good man is lovable and
desirable to the good man for both these reasons. Now it looks as if
love were a feeling, friendship a state of character; for love may
be felt just as much towards lifeless things, but mutual love involves
choice and choice springs from a state of character; and men wish well
to those whom they love, for their sake, not as a result of feeling
but as a result of a state of character. And in loving a friend men
love what is good for themselves; for the good man in becoming a
friend becomes a good to his friend. Each, then, both loves what is
good for himself, and makes an equal return in goodwill and in
pleasantness; for friendship is said to be equality, and both of these
are found most in the friendship of the good.

6

Between sour and elderly people friendship arises less readily,
inasmuch as they are less good-tempered and enjoy companionship
less; for these are thou to be the greatest marks of friendship
productive of it. This is why, while men become friends quickly, old
men do not; it is because men do not become friends with those in whom
they do not delight; and similarly sour people do not quickly make
friends either. But such men may bear goodwill to each other; for they
wish one another well and aid one another in need; but they are hardly
friends because they do not spend their days together nor delight in
each other, and these are thought the greatest marks of friendship.

One cannot be a friend to many people in the sense of having
friendship of the perfect type with them, just as one cannot be in
love with many people at once (for love is a sort of excess of
feeling, and it is the nature of such only to be felt towards one
person); and it is not easy for many people at the same time to please
the same person very greatly, or perhaps even to be good in his
eyes. One must, too, acquire some experience of the other person and
become familiar with him, and that is very hard. But with a view to
utility or pleasure it is possible that many people should please one;
for many people are useful or pleasant, and these services take little
time.

Of these two kinds that which is for the sake of pleasure is the
more like friendship, when both parties get the same things from
each other and delight in each other or in the things, as in the
friendships of the young; for generosity is more found in such
friendships. Friendship based on utility is for the commercially
minded. People who are supremely happy, too, have no need of useful
friends, but do need pleasant friends; for they wish to live with some
one and, though they can endure for a short time what is painful, no
one could put up with it continuously, nor even with the Good itself
if it were painful to him; this is why they look out for friends who
are pleasant. Perhaps they should look out for friends who, being
pleasant, are also good, and good for them too; for so they will
have all the characteristics that friends should have.

People in positions of authority seem to have friends who fall
into distinct classes; some people are useful to them and others are
pleasant, but the same people are rarely both; for they seek neither
those whose pleasantness is accompanied by virtue nor those whose
utility is with a view to noble objects, but in their desire for
pleasure they seek for ready-witted people, and their other friends
they choose as being clever at doing what they are told, and these
characteristics are rarely combined. Now we have said that the good
man is at the same time pleasant and useful; but such a man does not
become the friend of one who surpasses him in station, unless he is
surpassed also in virtue; if this is not so, he does not establish
equality by being proportionally exceeded in both respects. But people
who surpass him in both respects are not so easy to find.

However that may be, the aforesaid friendships involve equality; for
the friends get the same things from one another and wish the same
things for one another, or exchange one thing for another, e. g.
pleasure for utility; we have said, however, that they are both less
truly friendships and less permanent.

But it is from their likeness and their unlikeness to the same thing
that they are thought both to be and not to be friendships. It is by
their likeness to the friendship of virtue that they seem to be
friendships (for one of them involves pleasure and the other
utility, and these characteristics belong to the friendship of
virtue as well); while it is because the friendship of virtue is proof
against slander and permanent, while these quickly change (besides
differing from the former in many other respects), that they appear
not to be friendships; i. e. it is because of their unlikeness to the
friendship of virtue.

7

But there is another kind of friendship, viz. that which involves an
inequality between the parties, e. g. that of father to son and in
general of elder to younger, that of man to wife and in general that
of ruler to subject. And these friendships differ also from each
other; for it is not the same that exists between parents and children
and between rulers and subjects, nor is even that of father to son the
same as that of son to father, nor that of husband to wife the same as
that of wife to husband. For the virtue and the function of each of
these is different, and so are the reasons for which they love; the
love and the friendship are therefore different also. Each party,
then, neither gets the same from the other, nor ought to seek it;
but when children render to parents what they ought to render to those
who brought them into the world, and parents render what they should
to their children, the friendship of such persons will be abiding
and excellent. In all friendships implying inequality the love also
should be proportional, i. e. the better should be more loved than he
loves, and so should the more useful, and similarly in each of the
other cases; for when the love is in proportion to the merit of the
parties, then in a sense arises equality, which is certainly held to
be characteristic of friendship.

But equality does not seem to take the same form in acts of
justice and in friendship; for in acts of justice what is equal in the
primary sense is that which is in proportion to merit, while
quantitative equality is secondary, but in friendship quantitative
equality is primary and proportion to merit secondary. This becomes
clear if there is a great interval in respect of virtue or vice or
wealth or anything else between the parties; for then they are no
longer friends, and do not even expect to be so. And this is most
manifest in the case of the gods; for they surpass us most
decisively in all good things. But it is clear also in the case of
kings; for with them, too, men who are much their inferiors do not
expect to be friends; nor do men of no account expect to be friends
with the best or wisest men. In such cases it is not possible to
define exactly up to what point friends can remain friends; for much
can be taken away and friendship remain, but when one party is removed
to a great distance, as God is, the possibility of friendship
ceases. This is in fact the origin of the question whether friends
really wish for their friends the greatest goods, e. g. that of being
gods; since in that case their friends will no longer be friends to
them, and therefore will not be good things for them (for friends
are good things). The answer is that if we were right in saying that
friend wishes good to friend for his sake, his friend must remain
the sort of being he is, whatever that may be; therefore it is for him
oily so long as he remains a man that he will wish the greatest goods.
But perhaps not all the greatest goods; for it is for himself most
of all that each man wishes what is good.

8

Most people seem, owing to ambition, to wish to be loved rather than
to love; which is why most men love flattery; for the flatterer is a
friend in an inferior position, or pretends to be such and to love
more than he is loved; and being loved seems to be akin to being
honoured, and this is what most people aim at. But it seems to be
not for its own sake that people choose honour, but incidentally.
For most people enjoy being honoured by those in positions of
authority because of their hopes (for they think that if they want
anything they will get it from them; and therefore they delight in
honour as a token of favour to come); while those who desire honour
from good men, and men who know, are aiming at confirming their own
opinion of themselves; they delight in honour, therefore, because they
believe in their own goodness on the strength of the judgement of
those who speak about them. In being loved, on the other hand,
people delight for its own sake; whence it would seem to be better
than being honoured, and friendship to be desirable in itself. But
it seems to lie in loving rather than in being loved, as is
indicated by the delight mothers take in loving; for some mothers hand
over their children to be brought up, and so long as they know their
fate they love them and do not seek to be loved in return (if they
cannot have both), but seem to be satisfied if they see them
prospering; and they themselves love their children even if these
owing to their ignorance give them nothing of a mother's due. Now
since friendship depends more on loving, and it is those who love
their friends that are praised, loving seems to be the
characteristic virtue of friends, so that it is only those in whom
this is found in due measure that are lasting friends, and only
their friendship that endures.

It is in this way more than any other that even unequals can be
friends; they can be equalized. Now equality and likeness are
friendship, and especially the likeness of those who are like in
virtue; for being steadfast in themselves they hold fast to each
other, and neither ask nor give base services, but (one may say)
even prevent them; for it is characteristic of good men neither to
go wrong themselves nor to let their friends do so. But wicked men
have no steadfastness (for they do not remain even like to
themselves), but become friends for a short time because they
delight in each other's wickedness. Friends who are useful or pleasant
last longer; i. e. as long as they provide each other with enjoyments
or advantages. Friendship for utility's sake seems to be that which
most easily exists between contraries, e. g. between poor and rich,
between ignorant and learned; for what a man actually lacks he aims
at, and one gives something else in return. But under this head,
too, might bring lover and beloved, beautiful and ugly. This is why
lovers sometimes seem ridiculous, when they demand to be loved as they
love; if they are equally lovable their claim can perhaps be
justified, but when they have nothing lovable about them it is
ridiculous. Perhaps, however, contrary does not even aim at contrary
by its own nature, but only incidentally, the desire being for what is
intermediate; for that is what is good, e. g. it is good for the dry
not to become wet but to come to the intermediate state, and similarly
with the hot and in all other cases. These subjects we may dismiss;
for they are indeed somewhat foreign to our inquiry.

9

Friendship and justice seem, as we have said at the outset of our
discussion, to be concerned with the same objects and exhibited
between the same persons. For in every community there is thought to
be some form of justice, and friendship too; at least men address as
friends their fellow-voyagers and fellowsoldiers, and so too those
associated with them in any other kind of community. And the extent of
their association is the extent of their friendship, as it is the
extent to which justice exists between them. And the proverb 'what
friends have is common property' expresses the truth; for friendship
depends on community. Now brothers and comrades have all things in
common, but the others to whom we have referred have definite things
in common-some more things, others fewer; for of friendships, too,
some are more and others less truly friendships. And the claims of
justice differ too; the duties of parents to children, and those of
brothers to each other are not the same, nor those of comrades and
those of fellow-citizens, and so, too, with the other kinds of
friendship. There is a difference, therefore, also between the acts
that are unjust towards each of these classes of associates, and the
injustice increases by being exhibited towards those who are friends
in a fuller sense; e. g. it is a more terrible thing to defraud a
comrade than a fellow-citizen, more terrible not to help a brother
than a stranger, and more terrible to wound a father than any one
else. And the demands of justice also seem to increase with the
intensity of the friendship, which implies that friendship and justice
exist between the same persons and have an equal extension.

Now all forms of community are like parts of the political
community; for men journey together with a view to some particular
advantage, and to provide something that they need for the purposes of
life; and it is for the sake of advantage that the political community
too seems both to have come together originally and to endure, for
this is what legislators aim at, and they call just that which is to
the common advantage. Now the other communities aim at advantage bit
by bit, e. g. sailors at what is advantageous on a voyage with a view
to making money or something of the kind, fellow-soldiers at what is
advantageous in war, whether it is wealth or victory or the taking
of a city that they seek, and members of tribes and demes act
similarly (Some communities seem to arise for the sake or pleasure,
viz. religious guilds and social clubs; for these exist respectively
for the sake of offering sacrifice and of companionship. But all these
seem to fall under the political community; for it aims not at present
advantage but at what is advantageous for life as a whole), offering
sacrifices and arranging gatherings for the purpose, and assigning
honours to the gods, and providing pleasant relaxations for
themselves. For the ancient sacrifices and gatherings seem to take
place after the harvest as a sort of firstfruits, because it was at
these seasons that people had most leisure. All the communities, then,
seem to be parts of the political community; and the particular
kinds friendship will correspond to the particular kinds of community.

10

There are three kinds of constitution, and an equal number of
deviation-forms--perversions, as it were, of them. The constitutions
are monarchy, aristocracy, and thirdly that which is based on a
property qualification, which it seems appropriate to call timocratic,
though most people are wont to call it polity. The best of these is
monarchy, the worst timocracy. The deviation from monarchy is
tyrany; for both are forms of one-man rule, but there is the
greatest difference between them; the tyrant looks to his own
advantage, the king to that of his subjects. For a man is not a king
unless he is sufficient to himself and excels his subjects in all good
things; and such a man needs nothing further; therefore he will not
look to his own interests but to those of his subjects; for a king who
is not like that would be a mere titular king. Now tyranny is the very
contrary of this; the tyrant pursues his own good. And it is clearer
in the case of tyranny that it is the worst deviation-form; but it
is the contrary of the best that is worst. Monarchy passes over into
tyranny; for tyranny is the evil form of one-man rule and the bad king
becomes a tyrant. Aristocracy passes over into oligarchy by the
badness of the rulers, who distribute contrary to equity what
belongs to the city-all or most of the good things to themselves,
and office always to the same people, paying most regard to wealth;
thus the rulers are few and are bad men instead of the most worthy.
Timocracy passes over into democracy; for these are coterminous, since
it is the ideal even of timocracy to be the rule of the majority,
and all who have the property qualification count as equal.
Democracy is the least bad of the deviations; for in its case the form
of constitution is but a slight deviation. These then are the
changes to which constitutions are most subject; for these are the
smallest and easiest transitions.

One may find resemblances to the constitutions and, as it were,
patterns of them even in households. For the association of a father
with his sons bears the form of monarchy, since the father cares for
his children; and this is why Homer calls Zeus 'father'; it is the
ideal of monarchy to be paternal rule. But among the Persians the rule
of the father is tyrannical; they use their sons as slaves. Tyrannical
too is the rule of a master over slaves; for it is the advantage of
the master that is brought about in it. Now this seems to be a correct
form of government, but the Persian type is perverted; for the modes
of rule appropriate to different relations are diverse. The
association of man and wife seems to be aristocratic; for the man
rules in accordance with his worth, and in those matters in which a
man should rule, but the matters that befit a woman he hands over to
her. If the man rules in everything the relation passes over into
oligarchy; for in doing so he is not acting in accordance with their
respective worth, and not ruling in virtue of his superiority.
Sometimes, however, women rule, because they are heiresses; so their
rule is not in virtue of excellence but due to wealth and power, as in
oligarchies. The association of brothers is like timocracy; for they
are equal, except in so far as they differ in age; hence if they
differ much in age, the friendship is no longer of the fraternal type.
Democracy is found chiefly in masterless dwellings (for here every one
is on an equality), and in those in which the ruler is weak and
every one has licence to do as he pleases.

11

Each of the constitutions may be seen to involve friendship just
in so far as it involves justice. The friendship between a king and
his subjects depends on an excess of benefits conferred; for he
confers benefits on his subjects if being a good man he cares for them
with a view to their well-being, as a shepherd does for his sheep
(whence Homer called Agamemnon 'shepherd of the peoples'). Such too is
the friendship of a father, though this exceeds the other in the
greatness of the benefits conferred; for he is responsible for the
existence of his children, which is thought the greatest good, and for
their nurture and upbringing.

These things are ascribed to ancestors as well. Further, by nature a
father tends to rule over his sons, ancestors over descendants, a king
over his subjects. These friendships imply superiority of one party
over the other, which is why ancestors are honoured. The justice
therefore that exists between persons so related is not the same on
both sides but is in every case proportioned to merit; for that is
true of the friendship as well. The friendship of man and wife, again,
is the same that is found in an aristocracy; for it is in accordance
with virtue the better gets more of what is good, and each gets what
befits him; and so, too, with the justice in these relations. The
friendship of brothers is like that of comrades; for they are equal
and of like age, and such persons are for the most part like in
their feelings and their character. Like this, too, is the
friendship appropriate to timocratic government; for in such a
constitution the ideal is for the citizens to be equal and fair;
therefore rule is taken in turn, and on equal terms; and the
friendship appropriate here will correspond.

But in the deviation-forms, as justice hardly exists, so too does
friendship. It exists least in the worst form; in tyranny there is
little or no friendship. For where there is nothing common to ruler
and ruled, there is not friendship either, since there is not justice;
e. g. between craftsman and tool, soul and body, master and slave;
the latter in each case is benefited by that which uses it, but
there is no friendship nor justice towards lifeless things. But
neither is there friendship towards a horse or an ox, nor to a slave
qua slave. For there is nothing common to the two parties; the slave
is a living tool and the tool a lifeless slave. Qua slave then, one
cannot be friends with him. But qua man one can; for there seems to be
some justice between any man and any other who can share in a system
of law or be a party to an agreement; therefore there can also be
friendship with him in so far as he is a man. Therefore while in
tyrannies friendship and justice hardly exist, in democracies they
exist more fully; for where the citizens are equal they have much in
common.

12

Every form of friendship, then, involves association, as has been
said. One might, however, mark off from the rest both the friendship
of kindred and that of comrades. Those of fellow-citizens,
fellow-tribesmen, fellow-voyagers, and the like are more like mere
friendships of association; for they seem to rest on a sort of
compact. With them we might class the friendship of host and guest.
The friendship of kinsmen itself, while it seems to be of many
kinds, appears to depend in every case on parental friendship; for
parents love their children as being a part of themselves, and
children their parents as being something originating from them. Now
(1) arents know their offspring better than there children know that
they are their children, and (2) the originator feels his offspring to
be his own more than the offspring do their begetter; for the
product belongs to the producer (e. g. a tooth or hair or anything else
to him whose it is), but the producer does not belong to the
product, or belongs in a less degree. And (3) the length of time
produces the same result; parents love their children as soon as these
are born, but children love their parents only after time has
elapsed and they have acquired understanding or the power of
discrimination by the senses. From these considerations it is also
plain why mothers love more than fathers do. Parents, then, love their
children as themselves (for their issue are by virtue of their
separate existence a sort of other selves), while children love
their parents as being born of them, and brothers love each other as
being born of the same parents; for their identity with them makes
them identical with each other (which is the reason why people talk of
'the same blood', 'the same stock', and so on). They are, therefore,
in a sense the same thing, though in separate individuals. Two
things that contribute greatly to friendship are a common upbringing
and similarity of age; for 'two of an age take to each other', and
people brought up together tend to be comrades; whence the
friendship of brothers is akin to that of comrades. And cousins and
other kinsmen are bound up together by derivation from brothers,
viz. by being derived from the same parents. They come to be closer
together or farther apart by virtue of the nearness or distance of the
original ancestor.

The friendship of children to parents, and of men to gods, is a
relation to them as to something good and superior; for they have
conferred the greatest benefits, since they are the causes of their
being and of their nourishment, and of their education from their
birth; and this kind of friendship possesses pleasantness and
utility also, more than that of strangers, inasmuch as their life is
lived more in common.
The friendship of brothers has the
characteristics found in that of comrades (and especially when these
are good), and in general between people who are like each other,
inasmuch as they belong more to each other and start with a love for
each other from their very birth, and inasmuch as those born of the
same parents and brought up together and similarly educated are more
akin in character; and the test of time has been applied most fully
and convincingly in their case.

Between other kinsmen friendly relations are found in due
proportion. Between man and wife friendship seems to exist by
nature; for man is naturally inclined to form couples-even more than
to form cities, inasmuch as the household is earlier and more
necessary than the city, and reproduction is more common to man with
the animals. With the other animals the union extends only to this
point, but human beings live together not only for the sake of
reproduction but also for the various purposes of life; for from the
start the functions are divided, and those of man and woman are
different; so they help each other by throwing their peculiar gifts
into the common stock. It is for these reasons that both utility and
pleasure seem to be found in this kind of friendship. But this
friendship may be based also on virtue, if the parties are good; for
each has its own virtue and they will delight in the fact. And
children seem to be a bond of union (which is the reason why childless
people part more easily); for children are a good common to both and
what is common holds them together.

How man and wife and in general friend and friend ought mutually
to behave seems to be the same question as how it is just for them
to behave; for a man does not seem to have the same duties to a
friend, a stranger, a comrade, and a schoolfellow.

13

There are three kinds of friendship, as we said at the outset of our
inquiry, and in respect of each some are friends on an equality and
others by virtue of a superiority (for not only can equally good men
become friends but a better man can make friends with a worse, and
similarly in friendships of pleasure or utility the friends may be
equal or unequal in the benefits they confer). This being so, equals
must effect the required equalization on a basis of equality in love
and in all other respects, while unequals must render what is in
proportion to their superiority or inferiority. Complaints and
reproaches arise either only or chiefly in the friendship of
utility, and this is only to be expected. For those who are friends on
the ground of virtue are anxious to do well by each other (since
that is a mark of virtue and of friendship), and between men who are
emulating each other in this there cannot be complaints or quarrels;
no one is offended by a man who loves him and does well by him-if he
is a person of nice feeling he takes his revenge by doing well by
the other. And the man who excels the other in the services he renders
will not complain of his friend, since he gets what he aims at; for
each man desires what is good. Nor do complaints arise much even in
friendships of pleasure; for both get at the same time what they
desire, if they enjoy spending their time together; and even a man who
complained of another for not affording him pleasure would seem
ridiculous, since it is in his power not to spend his days with him.

But the friendship of utility is full of complaints; for as they use
each other for their own interests they always want to get the
better of the bargain, and think they have got less than they
should, and blame their partners because they do not get all they
'want and deserve'; and those who do well by others cannot help them
as much as those whom they benefit want.

Now it seems that, as justice is of two kinds, one unwritten and the
other legal, one kind of friendship of utility is moral and the
other legal. And so complaints arise most of all when men do not
dissolve the relation in the spirit of the same type of friendship
in which they contracted it. The legal type is that which is on
fixed terms; its purely commercial variety is on the basis of
immediate payment, while the more liberal variety allows time but
stipulates for a definite quid pro quo. In this variety the debt is
clear and not ambiguous, but in the postponement it contains an
element of friendliness; and so some states do not allow suits arising
out of such agreements, but think men who have bargained on a basis of
credit ought to accept the consequences. The moral type is not on
fixed terms; it makes a gift, or does whatever it does, as to a
friend; but one expects to receive as much or more, as having not
given but lent; and if a man is worse off when the relation is
dissolved than he was when it was contracted he will complain. This
happens because all or most men, while they wish for what is noble,
choose what is advantageous; now it is noble to do well by another
without a view to repayment, but it is the receiving of benefits
that is advantageous. Therefore if we can we should return the
equivalent of what we have received (for we must not make a man our
friend against his will; we must recognize that we were mistaken at
the first and took a benefit from a person we should not have taken it
from-since it was not from a friend, nor from one who did it just
for the sake of acting so-and we must settle up just as if we had been
benefited on fixed terms). Indeed, one would agree to repay if one
could (if one could not, even the giver would not have expected one to
do so); therefore if it is possible we must repay. But at the outset
we must consider the man by whom we are being benefited and on what
terms he is acting, in order that we may accept the benefit on these
terms, or else decline it.

It is disputable whether we ought to measure a service by its
utility to the receiver and make the return with a view to that, or by
the benevolence of the giver. For those who have received say they
have received from their benefactors what meant little to the latter
and what they might have got from others-minimizing the service; while
the givers, on the contrary, say it was the biggest thing they had,
and what could not have been got from others, and that it was given in
times of danger or similar need. Now if the friendship is one that
aims at utility, surely the advantage to the receiver is the
measure. For it is he that asks for the service, and the other man
helps him on the assumption that he will receive the equivalent; so
the assistance has been precisely as great as the advantage to the
receiver, and therefore he must return as much as he has received,
or even more (for that would be nobler). In friendships based on
virtue on the other hand, complaints do not arise, but the purpose
of the doer is a sort of measure; for in purpose lies the essential
element of virtue and character.

14

Differences arise also in friendships based on superiority; for each
expects to get more out of them, but when this happens the
friendship is dissolved. Not only does the better man think he ought
to get more, since more should be assigned to a good man, but the more
useful similarly expects this; they say a useless man should not get
as much as they should, since it becomes an act of public service
and not a friendship if the proceeds of the friendship do not answer
to the worth of the benefits conferred. For they think that, as in a
commercial partnership those who put more in get more out, so it
should be in friendship. But the man who is in a state of need and
inferiority makes the opposite claim; they think it is the part of a
good friend to help those who are in need; what, they say, is the
use of being the friend of a good man or a powerful man, if one is
to get nothing out of it?

At all events it seems that each party is justified in his claim,
and that each should get more out of the friendship than the other-not
more of the same thing, however, but the superior more honour and
the inferior more gain; for honour is the prize of virtue and of
beneficence, while gain is the assistance required by inferiority.

It seems to be so in constitutional arrangements also; the man who
contributes nothing good to the common stock is not honoured; for what
belongs to the public is given to the man who benefits the public, and
honour does belong to the public. It is not possible to get wealth
from the common stock and at the same time honour. For no one puts
up with the smaller share in all things; therefore to the man who
loses in wealth they assign honour and to the man who is willing to be
paid, wealth, since the proportion to merit equalizes the parties
and preserves the friendship, as we have said. This then is also the
way in which we should associate with unequals; the man who is
benefited in respect of wealth or virtue must give honour in return,
repaying what he can. For friendship asks a man to do what he can, not
what is proportional to the merits of the case; since that cannot
always be done, e. g. in honours paid to the gods or to parents; for no
one could ever return to them the equivalent of what he gets, but
the man who serves them to the utmost of his power is thought to be
a good man. This is why it would not seem open to a man to disown
his father (though a father may disown his son); being in debt, he
should repay, but there is nothing by doing which a son will have done
the equivalent of what he has received, so that he is always in
debt. But creditors can remit a debt; and a father can therefore do so
too. At the same time it is thought that presumably no one would
repudiate a son who was not far gone in wickedness; for apart from the
natural friendship of father and son it is human nature not to
reject a son's assistance. But the son, if he is wicked, will
naturally avoid aiding his father, or not be zealous about it; for
most people wish to get benefits, but avoid doing them, as a thing
unprofitable. -So much for these questions.

BOOK IX

1

IN all friendships between dissimilars it is, as we have said,
proportion that equalizes the parties and preserves the friendship;
e. g. in the political form of friendship the shoemaker gets a return
for his shoes in proportion to his worth, and the weaver and all other
craftsmen do the same. Now here a common measure has been provided
in the form of money, and therefore everything is referred to this and
measured by this; but in the friendship of lovers sometimes the
lover complains that his excess of love is not met by love in return
though perhaps there is nothing lovable about him), while often the
beloved complains that the lover who formerly promised everything
now performs nothing. Such incidents happen when the lover loves the
beloved for the sake of pleasure while the beloved loves the lover for
the sake of utility, and they do not both possess the qualities
expected of them. If these be the objects of the friendship it is
dissolved when they do not get the things that formed the motives of
their love; for each did not love the other person himself but the
qualities he had, and these were not enduring; that is why the
friendships also are transient. But the love of characters, as has
been said, endures because it is self-dependent. Differences arise
when what they get is something different and not what they desire;
for it is like getting nothing at all when we do not get what we aim
at; compare the story of the person who made promises to a
lyre-player, promising him the more, the better he sang, but in the
morning, when the other demanded the fulfilment of his promises,
said that he had given pleasure for pleasure. Now if this had been
what each wanted, all would have been well; but if the one wanted
enjoyment but the other gain, and the one has what he wants while
the other has not, the terms of the association will not have been
properly fulfilled; for what each in fact wants is what he attends to,
and it is for the sake of that that that he will give what he has.

But who is to fix the worth of the service; he who makes the
sacrifice or he who has got the advantage? At any rate the other seems
to leave it to him. This is what they say Protagoras used to do;
whenever he taught anything whatsoever, he bade the learner assess the
value of the knowledge, and accepted the amount so fixed. But in
such matters some men approve of the saying 'let a man have his
fixed reward'. Those who get the money first and then do none of the
things they said they would, owing to the extravagance of their
promises, naturally find themselves the objects of complaint; for they
do not fulfil what they agreed to. The sophists are perhaps
compelled to do this because no one would give money for the things
they do know. These people then, if they do not do what they have been
paid for, are naturally made the objects of complaint.

But where there is no contract of service, those who give up
something for the sake of the other party cannot (as we have said)
be complained of (for that is the nature of the friendship of virtue),
and the return to them must be made on the basis of their purpose (for
it is purpose that is the characteristic thing in a friend and in
virtue). And so too, it seems, should one make a return to those
with whom one has studied philosophy; for their worth cannot be
measured against money, and they can get no honour which will
balance their services, but still it is perhaps enough, as it is
with the gods and with one's parents, to give them what one can.

If the gift was not of this sort, but was made with a view to a
return, it is no doubt preferable that the return made should be one
that seems fair to both parties, but if this cannot be achieved, it
would seem not only necessary that the person who gets the first
service should fix the reward, but also just; for if the other gets in
return the equivalent of the advantage the beneficiary has received,
or the price lie would have paid for the pleasure, he will have got
what is fair as from the other.

We see this happening too with things put up for sale, and in some
places there are laws providing that no actions shall arise out of
voluntary contracts, on the assumption that one should settle with a
person to whom one has given credit, in the spirit in which one
bargained with him. The law holds that it is more just that the person
to whom credit was given should fix the terms than that the person who
gave credit should do so. For most things are not assessed at the same
value by those who have them and those who want them; each class
values highly what is its own and what it is offering; yet the
return is made on the terms fixed by the receiver. But no doubt the
receiver should assess a thing not at what it seems worth when he
has it, but at what he assessed it at before he had it.

2

A further problem is set by such questions as, whether one should in
all things give the preference to one's father and obey him, or
whether when one is ill one should trust a doctor, and when one has to
elect a general should elect a man of military skill; and similarly
whether one should render a service by preference to a friend or to
a good man, and should show gratitude to a benefactor or oblige a
friend, if one cannot do both.

All such questions are hard, are they not, to decide with precision?
For they admit of many variations of all sorts in respect both of
the magnitude of the service and of its nobility necessity. But that
we should not give the preference in all things to the same person
is plain enough; and we must for the most part return benefits
rather than oblige friends, as we must pay back a loan to a creditor
rather than make one to a friend. But perhaps even this is not
always true; e. g. should a man who has been ransomed out of the
hands of brigands ransom his ransomer in return, whoever he may be (or
pay him if he has not been captured but demands payment) or should
he ransom his father? It would seem that he should ransom his father
in preference even to himself. As we have said, then, generally the
debt should be paid, but if the gift is exceedingly noble or
exceedingly necessary, one should defer to these considerations. For
sometimes it is not even fair to return the equivalent of what one has
received, when the one man has done a service to one whom he knows
to be good, while the other makes a return to one whom he believes
to be bad. For that matter, one should sometimes not lend in return to
one who has lent to oneself; for the one person lent to a good man,
expecting to recover his loan, while the other has no hope of
recovering from one who is believed to be bad. Therefore if the
facts really are so, the demand is not fair; and if they are not,
but people think they are, they would be held to be doing nothing
strange in refusing. As we have often pointed out, then, discussions
about feelings and actions have just as much definiteness as their
subject-matter.

That we should not make the same return to every one, nor give a
father the preference in everything, as one does not sacrifice
everything to Zeus, is plain enough; but since we ought to render
different things to parents, brothers, comrades, and benefactors, we
ought to render to each class what is appropriate and becoming. And
this is what people seem in fact to do; to marriages they invite their
kinsfolk; for these have a part in the family and therefore in the
doings that affect the family; and at funerals also they think that
kinsfolk, before all others, should meet, for the same reason. And
it would be thought that in the matter of food we should help our
parents before all others, since we owe our own nourishment to them,
and it is more honourable to help in this respect the authors of our
being even before ourselves; and honour too one should give to one's
parents as one does to the gods, but not any and every honour; for
that matter one should not give the same honour to one's father and
one's mother, nor again should one give them the honour due to a
philosopher or to a general, but the honour due to a father, or
again to a mother. To all older persons, too, one should give honour
appropriate to their age, by rising to receive them and finding
seats for them and so on; while to comrades and brothers one should
allow freedom of speech and common use of all things. To kinsmen, too,
and fellow-tribesmen and fellow-citizens and to every other class
one should always try to assign what is appropriate, and to compare
the claims of each class with respect to nearness of relation and to
virtue or usefulness. The comparison is easier when the persons belong
to the same class, and more laborious when they are different. Yet
we must not on that account shrink from the task, but decide the
question as best we can.

3

Another question that arises is whether friendships should or should
not be broken off when the other party does not remain the same.
Perhaps we may say that there is nothing strange in breaking off a
friendship based on utility or pleasure, when our friends no longer
have these attributes. For it was of these attributes that we were the
friends; and when these have failed it is reasonable to love no
longer. But one might complain of another if, when he loved us for our
usefulness or pleasantness, he pretended to love us for our character.
For, as we said at the outset, most differences arise between
friends when they are not friends in the spirit in which they think
they are. So when a man has deceived himself and has thought he was
being loved for his character, when the other person was doing nothing
of the kind, he must blame himself; when he has been deceived by the
pretences of the other person, it is just that he should complain
against his deceiver; he will complain with more justice than one does
against people who counterfeit the currency, inasmuch as the
wrongdoing is concerned with something more valuable.

But if one accepts another man as good, and he turns out badly and
is seen to do so, must one still love him? Surely it is impossible,
since not everything can be loved, but only what is good. What is evil
neither can nor should be loved; for it is not one's duty to be a
lover of evil, nor to become like what is bad; and we have said that
like is dear like. Must the friendship, then, be forthwith broken off?
Or is this not so in all cases, but only when one's friends are
incurable in their wickedness? If they are capable of being reformed
one should rather come to the assistance of their character or their
property, inasmuch as this is better and more characteristic of
friendship. But a man who breaks off such a friendship would seem to
be doing nothing strange; for it was not to a man of this sort that he
was a friend; when his friend has changed, therefore, and he is unable
to save him, he gives him up.

But if one friend remained the same while the other became better
and far outstripped him in virtue, should the latter treat the
former as a friend? Surely he cannot. When the interval is great
this becomes most plain, e. g. in the case of childish friendships;
if one friend remained a child in intellect while the other became a
fully developed man, how could they be friends when they neither
approved of the same things nor delighted in and were pained by the
same things? For not even with regard to each other will their
tastes agree, and without this (as we saw) they cannot be friends; for
they cannot live together. But we have discussed these matters.

Should he, then, behave no otherwise towards him than he would if he
had never been his friend? Surely he should keep a remembrance of
their former intimacy, and as we think we ought to oblige friends
rather than strangers, so to those who have been our friends we
ought to make some allowance for our former friendship, when the
breach has not been due to excess of wickedness.

4

Friendly relations with one's neighbours, and the marks by which
friendships are defined, seem to have proceeded from a man's relations
to himself. For (1) we define a friend as one who wishes and does what
is good, or seems so, for the sake of his friend, or (2) as one who
wishes his friend to exist and live, for his sake; which mothers do to
their children, and friends do who have come into conflict. And (3)
others define him as one who lives with and (4) has the same tastes as
another, or (5) one who grieves and rejoices with his friend; and this
too is found in mothers most of all. It is by some one of these
characterstics that friendship too is defined.

Now each of these is true of the good man's relation to himself (and
of all other men in so far as they think themselves good; virtue and
the good man seem, as has been said, to be the measure of every
class of things). For his opinions are harmonious, and he desires
the same things with all his soul; and therefore he wishes for himself
what is good and what seems so, and does it (for it is
characteristic of the good man to work out the good), and does so
for his own sake (for he does it for the sake of the intellectual
element in him, which is thought to be the man himself); and he wishes
himself to live and be preserved, and especially the element by virtue
of which he thinks. For existence is good to the virtuous man, and
each man wishes himself what is good, while no one chooses to
possess the whole world if he has first to become some one else (for
that matter, even now God possesses the good); he wishes for this only
on condition of being whatever he is; and the element that thinks
would seem to be the individual man, or to be so more than any other
element in him. And such a man wishes to live with himself; for he
does so with pleasure, since the memories of his past acts are
delightful and his hopes for the future are good, and therefore
pleasant. His mind is well stored too with subjects of
contemplation. And he grieves and rejoices, more than any other,
with himself; for the same thing is always painful, and the same thing
always pleasant, and not one thing at one time and another at another;
he has, so to speak, nothing to repent of.

Therefore, since each of these characteristics belongs to the good
man in relation to himself, and he is related to his friend as to
himself (for his friend is another self), friendship too is thought to
be one of these attributes, and those who have these attributes to
be friends. Whether there is or is not friendship between a man and
himself is a question we may dismiss for the present; there would seem
to be friendship in so far as he is two or more, to judge from the
afore-mentioned attributes of friendship, and from the fact that the
extreme of friendship is likened to one's love for oneself.

But the attributes named seem to belong even to the majority of men,
poor creatures though they may be. Are we to say then that in so far
as they are satisfied with themselves and think they are good, they
share in these attributes? Certainly no one who is thoroughly bad
and impious has these attributes, or even seems to do so. They
hardly belong even to inferior people; for they are at variance with
themselves, and have appetites for some things and rational desires
for others. This is true, for instance, of incontinent people; for
they choose, instead of the things they themselves think good,
things that are pleasant but hurtful; while others again, through
cowardice and laziness, shrink from doing what they think best for
themselves. And those who have done many terrible deeds and are
hated for their wickedness even shrink from life and destroy
themselves. And wicked men seek for people with whom to spend their
days, and shun themselves; for they remember many a grevious deed, and
anticipate others like them, when they are by themselves, but when
they are with others they forget. And having nothing lovable in them
they have no feeling of love to themselves. Therefore also such men do
not rejoice or grieve with themselves; for their soul is rent by
faction, and one element in it by reason of its wickedness grieves
when it abstains from certain acts, while the other part is pleased,
and one draws them this way and the other that, as if they were
pulling them in pieces. If a man cannot at the same time be pained and
pleased, at all events after a short time he is pained because he
was pleased, and he could have wished that these things had not been
pleasant to him; for bad men are laden with repentance.

Therefore the bad man does not seem to be amicably disposed even
to himself, because there is nothing in him to love; so that if to
be thus is the height of wretchedness, we should strain every nerve to
avoid wickedness and should endeavour to be good; for so and only so
can one be either friendly to oneself or a friend to another.

5

Goodwill is a friendly sort of relation, but is not identical with
friendship; for one may have goodwill both towards people whom one
does not know, and without their knowing it, but not friendship.
This has indeed been said already. ' But goodwill is not even
friendly feeling. For it does not involve intensity or desire, whereas
these accompany friendly feeling; and friendly feeling implies
intimacy while goodwill may arise of a sudden, as it does towards
competitors in a contest; we come to feel goodwill for them and to
share in their wishes, but we would not do anything with them; for, as
we said, we feel goodwill suddenly and love them only superficially.

Goodwill seems, then, to be a beginning of friendship, as the
pleasure of the eye is the beginning of love. For no one loves if he
has not first been delighted by the form of the beloved, but he who
delights in the form of another does not, for all that, love him,
but only does so when he also longs for him when absent and craves for
his presence; so too it is not possible for people to be friends if
they have not come to feel goodwill for each other, but those who feel
goodwill are not for all that friends; for they only wish well to
those for whom they feel goodwill, and would not do anything with them
nor take trouble for them. And so one might by an extension of the
term friendship say that goodwill is inactive friendship, though
when it is prolonged and reaches the point of intimacy it becomes
friendship-not the friendship based on utility nor that based on
pleasure; for goodwill too does not arise on those terms. The man
who has received a benefit bestows goodwill in return for what has
been done to him, but in doing so is only doing what is just; while he
who wishes some one to prosper because he hopes for enrichment through
him seems to have goodwill not to him but rather to himself, just as a
man is not a friend to another if he cherishes him for the sake of
some use to be made of him. In general, goodwill arises on account
of some excellence and worth, when one man seems to another
beautiful or brave or something of the sort, as we pointed out in
the case of competitors in a contest.

6

Unanimity also seems to be a friendly relation. For this reason it
is not identity of opinion; for that might occur even with people
who do not know each other; nor do we say that people who have the
same views on any and every subject are unanimous, e. g. those who
agree about the heavenly bodies (for unanimity about these is not a
friendly relation), but we do say that a city is unanimous when men
have the same opinion about what is to their interest, and choose
the same actions, and do what they have resolved in common. It is
about things to be done, therefore, that people are said to be
unanimous, and, among these, about matters of consequence and in which
it is possible for both or all parties to get what they want; e. g. a
city is unanimous when all its citizens think that the offices in it
should be elective, or that they should form an alliance with
Sparta, or that Pittacus should be their ruler-at a time when he
himself was also willing to rule. But when each of two people wishes
himself to have the thing in question, like the captains in the
Phoenissae, they are in a state of faction; for it is not unanimity
when each of two parties thinks of the same thing, whatever that may
be, but only when they think of the same thing in the same hands, e. g.
when both the common people and those of the better class wish the
best men to rule; for thus and thus alone do all get what they aim at.
Unanimity seems, then, to be political friendship, as indeed it is
commonly said to be; for it is concerned with things that are to our
interest and have an influence on our life.

Now such unanimity is found among good men; for they are unanimous
both in themselves and with one another, being, so to say, of one mind
(for the wishes of such men are constant and not at the mercy of
opposing currents like a strait of the sea), and they wish for what is
just and what is advantageous, and these are the objects of their
common endeavour as well. But bad men cannot be unanimous except to
a small extent, any more than they can be friends, since they aim at
getting more than their share of advantages, while in labour and
public service they fall short of their share; and each man wishing
for advantage to himself criticizes his neighbour and stands in his
way; for if people do not watch it carefully the common weal is soon
destroyed. The result is that they are in a state of faction,
putting compulsion on each other but unwilling themselves to do what
is just.

7

Benefactors are thought to love those they have benefited, more than
those who have been well treated love those that have treated them
well, and this is discussed as though it were paradoxical. Most people
think it is because the latter are in the position of debtors and
the former of creditors; and therefore as, in the case of loans,
debtors wish their creditors did not exist, while creditors actually
take care of the safety of their debtors, so it is thought that
benefactors wish the objects of their action to exist since they
will then get their gratitude, while the beneficiaries take no
interest in making this return. Epicharmus would perhaps declare
that they say this because they 'look at things on their bad side',
but it is quite like human nature; for most people are forgetful,
and are more anxious to be well treated than to treat others well. But
the cause would seem to be more deeply rooted in the nature of things;
the case of those who have lent money is not even analogous. For
they have no friendly feeling to their debtors, but only a wish that
they may kept safe with a view to what is to be got from them; while
those who have done a service to others feel friendship and love for
those they have served even if these are not of any use to them and
never will be. This is what happens with craftsmen too; every man
loves his own handiwork better than he would be loved by it if it came
alive; and this happens perhaps most of all with poets; for they
have an excessive love for their own poems, doting on them as if
they were their children. This is what the position of benefactors
is like; for that which they have treated well is their handiwork, and
therefore they love this more than the handiwork does its maker. The
cause of this is that existence is to all men a thing to be chosen and
loved, and that we exist by virtue of activity (i. e. by living and
acting), and that the handiwork is in a sense, the producer in
activity; he loves his handiwork, therefore, because he loves
existence. And this is rooted in the nature of things; for what he
is in potentiality, his handiwork manifests in activity.

At the same time to the benefactor that is noble which depends on
his action, so that he delights in the object of his action, whereas
to the patient there is nothing noble in the agent, but at most
something advantageous, and this is less pleasant and lovable. What is
pleasant is the activity of the present, the hope of the future, the
memory of the past; but most pleasant is that which depends on
activity, and similarly this is most lovable. Now for a man who has
made something his work remains (for the noble is lasting), but for
the person acted on the utility passes away. And the memory of noble
things is pleasant, but that of useful things is not likely to be
pleasant, or is less so; though the reverse seems true of expectation.

Further, love is like activity, being loved like passivity; and
loving and its concomitants are attributes of those who are the more
active.

Again, all men love more what they have won by labour; e. g. those
who have made their money love it more than those who have inherited
it; and to be well treated seems to involve no labour, while to
treat others well is a laborious task. These are the reasons, too, why
mothers are fonder of their children than fathers; bringing them
into the world costs them more pains, and they know better that the
children are their own. This last point, too, would seem to apply to
benefactors.

8

The question is also debated, whether a man should love himself
most, or some one else. People criticize those who love themselves
most, and call them self-lovers, using this as an epithet of disgrace,
and a bad man seems to do everything for his own sake, and the more so
the more wicked he is-and so men reproach him, for instance, with
doing nothing of his own accord-while the good man acts for honour's
sake, and the more so the better he is, and acts for his friend's
sake, and sacrifices his own interest.

But the facts clash with these arguments, and this is not
surprising. For men say that one ought to love best one's best friend,
and man's best friend is one who wishes well to the object of his wish
for his sake, even if no one is to know of it; and these attributes
are found most of all in a man's attitude towards himself, and so
are all the other attributes by which a friend is defined; for, as
we have said, it is from this relation that all the characteristics of
friendship have extended to our neighbours. All the proverbs, too,
agree with this, e. g. 'a single soul', and 'what friends have is
common property', and 'friendship is equality', and 'charity begins at
home'; for all these marks will be found most in a man's relation to
himself; he is his own best friend and therefore ought to love himself
best. It is therefore a reasonable question, which of the two views we
should follow; for both are plausible.

Perhaps we ought to mark off such arguments from each other and
determine how far and in what respects each view is right. Now if we
grasp the sense in which each school uses the phrase 'lover of
self', the truth may become evident. Those who use the term as one
of reproach ascribe self-love to people who assign to themselves the
greater share of wealth, honours, and bodily pleasures; for these
are what most people desire, and busy themselves about as though
they were the best of all things, which is the reason, too, why they
become objects of competition. So those who are grasping with regard
to these things gratify their appetites and in general their
feelings and the irrational element of the soul; and most men are of
this nature (which is the reason why the epithet has come to be used
as it is-it takes its meaning from the prevailing type of self-love,
which is a bad one); it is just, therefore, that men who are lovers of
self in this way are reproached for being so. That it is those who
give themselves the preference in regard to objects of this sort
that most people usually call lovers of self is plain; for if a man
were always anxious that he himself, above all things, should act
justly, temperately, or in accordance with any other of the virtues,
and in general were always to try to secure for himself the honourable
course, no one will call such a man a lover of self or blame him.

But such a man would seem more than the other a lover of self; at
all events he assigns to himself the things that are noblest and best,
and gratifies the most authoritative element in and in all things
obeys this; and just as a city or any other systematic whole is most
properly identified with the most authoritative element in it, so is a
man; and therefore the man who loves this and gratifies it is most
of all a lover of self. Besides, a man is said to have or not to
have self-control according as his reason has or has not the
control, on the assumption that this is the man himself; and the
things men have done on a rational principle are thought most properly
their own acts and voluntary acts. That this is the man himself, then,
or is so more than anything else, is plain, and also that the good man
loves most this part of him. Whence it follows that he is most truly a
lover of self, of another type than that which is a matter of
reproach, and as different from that as living according to a rational
principle is from living as passion dictates, and desiring what is
noble from desiring what seems advantageous. Those, then, who busy
themselves in an exceptional degree with noble actions all men approve
and praise; and if all were to strive towards what is noble and strain
every nerve to do the noblest deeds, everything would be as it
should be for the common weal, and every one would secure for
himself the goods that are greatest, since virtue is the greatest of
goods.

Therefore the good man should be a lover of self (for he will both
himself profit by doing noble acts, and will benefit his fellows), but
the wicked man should not; for he will hurt both himself and his
neighbours, following as he does evil passions. For the wicked man,
what he does clashes with what he ought to do, but what the good man
ought to do he does; for reason in each of its possessors chooses what
is best for itself, and the good man obeys his reason. It is true of
the good man too that he does many acts for the sake of his friends
and his country, and if necessary dies for them; for he will throw
away both wealth and honours and in general the goods that are objects
of competition, gaining for himself nobility; since he would prefer
a short period of intense pleasure to a long one of mild enjoyment,
a twelvemonth of noble life to many years of humdrum existence, and
one great and noble action to many trivial ones. Now those who die for
others doubtless attain this result; it is therefore a great prize
that they choose for themselves. They will throw away wealth too on
condition that their friends will gain more; for while a man's
friend gains wealth he himself achieves nobility; he is therefore
assigning the greater good to himself.