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their approach and by giving them the place of honour at the table, and so forth. But
between comrades and brothers there should be freedom of speech and community in
everything. And to kinsfolk and fellow-tribesmen and fellow-citizens, and all other
persons, we should always try to give their due, and to assign to each what properly
belongs to him, according to the closeness of his connection with us, and his goodness
or usefulness. When the persons are of one kind this assignment is comparatively
easy, but when they are of different kinds it is more difficult. We must not, however,
on this account shirk the difficulty, but must distinguish as best as we can.
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3.
Of The Dissolution Of Friendships.
Another difficult question is, whether we should or should not break off friendship
with those who have ceased to be what they were.
We may, perhaps, say that those whose friendship is based on profit or pleasure
naturally part when these cease; for it was these that they loved: when these are gone,
therefore, it is to be expected that the love goes too. But complaints would be likely to
arise if a man who loved another for profit or pleasure s sake pretended to love him
for his character; for, as we said at the outset, quarrels between friends very frequently
arise from a difference between the real and the supposed motives of the friendship.
If, then, a man deceives himself, and supposes that he is beloved for his character,
though the other s behaviour gives no ground for the supposition, he has only himself
to blame; but if he is deceived by the other s pretence, then there is a fair ground of
complaint against such an impostor, even more than against those who counterfeit the
coinage, inasmuch as it is a more precious thing that is tampered with.
But if a man admit another to his friendship as a good man, and he becomes and
shows himself to be a bad man, is he still to be loved? Perhaps we may answer that it
is impossible, as it is not everything that is lovable, but only the good. A bad man,
then, is not lovable, and ought not to be loved: for we ought not to love what is bad,
nor to make ourselves like what is worthless; but, as we said before, it is like that
makes friends with like.
Is the friendship, then, to be immediately broken off? Perhaps not in all cases, but
only in the case of those who are incurably bad: when their reformation is possible,
we are more bound to help them in their character than their fortune, inasmuch as
character is a nobler thing, and has more to do with friendship than fortune has. But a
man who withdraws his friendship in such a case, would seem to do nothing
unnatural; for it was not with such a man that he made friends: his friend has become
another man, and as he cannot restore him, he stands aloof from him.
But suppose that the one remains what he was while the other gets better and becomes
far superior in virtue: is the latter still to treat the former as a friend? Perhaps it is
hardly possible that he should do so. We see this most plainly if the interval between
the two be very considerable. Take, for instance, a boyish friendship: if one of the two
remains a child in understanding, while the other has become a man in the fullest
sense of the word, how can they any longer be friends, now that the things that will
please them, and the sources of their joys and sorrows, are no longer the same? for not
even in regard to each other s character will their tastes agree, and without this, we
found, people cannot be friends, since they cannot live together. (But this point has
been already discussed.)
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Shall we, then, simply say that the latter should regard the former as no more a
stranger than if he had never been his friend? Perhaps we may go further than this,
and say that he should not entirely forget their former intercourse, and that just as we
hold that we ought to serve friends before strangers, so former friends have some
claims upon us on the ground of past friendship, unless extraordinary depravity were
the cause of our parting.
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4.
A Man S Relation To His Friend Like His Relation To Himself.
Friendly relations to others, and all the characteristics by which friendship is defined,
seem to be derived from our relations towards ourselves. A friend is sometimes
described as one who wishes and does to another what is good or seems good for that
other s sake, or as one who wishes his friend to exist and to live for his (the friend s)
sake. (This is what mothers feel towards their children, and what friends who have
had a difference feel for one another.) Others describe a friend as one who lives with
another and chooses what he chooses, or as one who sympathizes with the griefs and
joys of his friend. (This, also, is especially the case with mothers.) And, similarly,
friendship is usually defined by some one or other of these characteristics.
Now, every one of these characteristics we find in the good man s relations to himself
(and in other men just so far as they suppose themselves to be good; but it seems, as
we have said, that virtue and the good man are in everything the standard): for the
good man is of one mind with himself, and desires the same things with all his soul,
and wishes for himself what both is and seems good, and does that (for it is
characteristic of him to work out that which is good) for his own sake for the sake,
that is to say, of the rational part of him, which seems to be a man s self. And he
wishes his self to live and be preserved, and especially that part of his self by which
he thinks: for existence is good to the good man. But it is for himself that each wishes
the good; no one would choose to have all that is good (as e.g. God is in complete
possession of the good) on condition of becoming some one else, but only on
condition of still being just himself.* But his reason would seem to be a man s self,
or, at least, to be so in a truer sense than any other of his faculties.
Such a man also wishes to live with himself; for his own company is pleasant to him.
The memory of his past life is sweet, and for the future he has good hopes; and such
hopes are pleasant. His mind, moreover, is well stored with matter for contemplation:
and he sympathizes with himself in sorrow and in joy; for at all seasons the same
things give him pain and pleasure, not this thing now, and then another thing, for he
is, so to speak, not apt to change his mind.
Since, then, all these characteristics are found in the good man s relations to himself,
and since his relations to his friend are the same as his relations to himself (for his
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