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. The same too is true of
honour and office; all these things he will sacrifice to his friend;
for this is noble and laudable for himself. Rightly then is he thought
to be good, since he chooses nobility before all else. But he may even
give up actions to his friend; it may be nobler to become the cause of
his friend's acting than to act himself. In all the actions,
therefore, that men are praised for, the good man is seen to assign to
himself the greater share in what is noble. In this sense, then, as
has been said, a man should be a lover of self; but in the sense in
which most men are so, he ought not.
9

It is also disputed whether the happy man will need friends or
not. It is said that those who are supremely happy and self-sufficient
have no need of friends; for they have the things that are good, and
therefore being self-sufficient they need nothing further, while a
friend, being another self, furnishes what a man cannot provide by his
own effort; whence the saying 'when fortune is kind, what need of
friends?' But it seems strange, when one assigns all good things to
the happy man, not to assign friends, who are thought the greatest
of external goods. And if it is more characteristic of a friend to
do well by another than to be well done by, and to confer benefits
is characteristic of the good man and of virtue, and it is nobler to
do well by friends than by strangers, the good man will need people to
do well by. This is why the question is asked whether we need
friends more in prosperity or in adversity, on the assumption that not
only does a man in adversity need people to confer benefits on him,
but also those who are prospering need people to do well by. Surely it
is strange, too, to make the supremely happy man a solitary; for no
one would choose the whole world on condition of being alone, since
man is a political creature and one whose nature is to live with
others. Therefore even the happy man lives with others; for he has the
things that are by nature good. And plainly it is better to spend
his days with friends and good men than with strangers or any chance
persons. Therefore the happy man needs friends.
What then is it that the first school means, and in what respect
is it right? Is it that most identify friends with useful people? Of
such friends indeed the supremely happy man will have no need, since
he already has the things that are good; nor will he need those whom
one makes one's friends because of their pleasantness, or he will need
them only to a small extent (for his life, being pleasant, has no need
of adventitious pleasure); and because he does not need such friends
he is thought not to need friends.
But that is surely not true. For we have said at the outset that
happiness is an activity; and activity plainly comes into being and is
not present at the start like a piece of property. If (1) happiness
lies in living and being active, and the good man's activity is
virtuous and pleasant in itself, as we have said at the outset, and
(2) a thing's being one's own is one of the attributes that make it
pleasant, and (3) we can contemplate our neighbours better than
ourselves and their actions better than our own, and if the actions of
virtuous men who are their friends are pleasant to good men (since
these have both the attributes that are naturally pleasant),-if this
be so, the supremely happy man will need friends of this sort, since
his purpose is to contemplate worthy actions and actions that are
his own, and the actions of a good man who is his friend have both
these qualities.
Further, men think that the happy man ought to live pleasantly.
Now if he were a solitary, life would be hard for him; for by
oneself it is not easy to be continuously active; but with others
and towards others it is easier. With others therefore his activity
will be more continuous, and it is in itself pleasant, as it ought
to be for the man who is supremely happy; for a good man qua good
delights in virtuous actions and is vexed at vicious ones, as a
musical man enjoys beautiful tunes but is pained at bad ones. A
certain training in virtue arises also from the company of the good,
as Theognis has said before us.
If we look deeper into the nature of things, a virtuous friend seems
to be naturally desirable for a virtuous man. For that which is good
by nature, we have said, is for the virtuous man good and pleasant
in itself. Now life is defined in the case of animals by the power
of perception in that of man by the power of perception or thought;
and a power is defined by reference to the corresponding activity,
which is the essential thing; therefore life seems to be essentially
the act of perceiving or thinking. And life is among the things that
are good and pleasant in themselves, since it is determinate and the
determinate is of the nature of the good; and that which is good by
nature is also good for the virtuous man (which is the reason why life
seems pleasant to all men); but we must not apply this to a wicked and
corrupt life nor to a life spent in pain; for such a life is
indeterminate, as are its attributes. The nature of pain will become
plainer in what follows. But if life itself is good and pleasant
(which it seems to be, from the very fact that all men desire it,
and particularly those who are good and supremely happy; for to such
men life is most desirable, and their existence is the most
supremely happy) and if he who sees perceives that he sees, and he who
hears, that he hears, and he who walks, that he walks, and in the case
of all other activities similarly there is something which perceives
that we are active, so that if we perceive, we perceive that we
perceive, and if we think, that we think; and if to perceive that we
perceive or think is to perceive that we exist (for existence was
defined as perceiving or thinking); and if perceiving that one lives
is in itself one of the things that are pleasant (for life is by
nature good, and to perceive what is good present in oneself is
pleasant); and if life is desirable, and particularly so for good men,
because to them existence is good and pleasant for they are pleased at
the consciousness of the presence in them of what is in itself
good); and if as the virtuous man is to himself, he is to his friend
also (for his friend is another self):-if all this be true, as his own
being is desirable for each man, so, or almost so, is that of his
friend. Now his being was seen to be desirable because he perceived
his own goodness, and such perception is pleasant in itself. He needs,
therefore, to be conscious of the existence of his friend as well, and
this will be realized in their living together and sharing in
discussion and thought; for this is what living together would seem to
mean in the case of man, and not, as in the case of cattle, feeding in
the same place.
If, then, being is in itself desirable for the supremely happy man
(since it is by its nature good and pleasant), and that of his
friend is very much the same, a friend will be one of the things
that are desirable. Now that which is desirable for him he must
have, or he will be deficient in this respect. The man who is to be
happy will therefore need virtuous friends.
10

Should we, then, make as many friends as possible, or-as in the case
of hospitality it is thought to be suitable advice, that one should be
'neither a man of many guests nor a man with none'-will that apply
to friendship as well; should a man neither be friendless nor have
an excessive number of friends?
To friends made with a view to utility this saying would seem
thoroughly applicable; for to do services to many people in return
is a laborious task and life is not long enough for its performance.
Therefore friends in excess of those who are sufficient for our own
life are superfluous, and hindrances to the noble life; so that we
have no need of them. Of friends made with a view to pleasure, also,
few are enough, as a little seasoning in food is enough.
But as regards good friends, should we have as many as possible,
or is there a limit to the number of one's friends, as there is to the
size of a city? You cannot make a city of ten men, and if there are
a hundred thousand it is a city no longer. But the proper number is
presumably not a single number, but anything that falls between
certain fixed points. So for friends too there is a fixed number
perhaps the largest number with whom one can live together (for
that, we found, thought to be very characteristic of friendship);
and that one cannot live with many people and divide oneself up
among them is plain. Further, they too must be friends of one another,
if they are all to spend their days together; and it is a hard
business for this condition to be fulfilled with a large number. It is
found difficult, too, to rejoice and to grieve in an intimate way with
many people, for it may likely happen that one has at once to be happy
with one friend and to mourn with another. Presumably, then, it is
well not to seek to have as many friends as possible, but as many as
are enough for the purpose of living together; for it would seem
actually impossible to be a great friend to many people. This is why
one cannot love several people; love is ideally a sort of excess of
friendship, and that can only be felt towards one person; therefore
great friendship too can only be felt towards a few people. This seems
to be confirmed in practice; for we do not find many people who are
friends in the comradely way of friendship, and the famous friendships
of this sort are always between two people. Those who have many
friends and mix intimately with them all are thought to be no one's
friend, except in the way proper to fellow-citizens, and such people
are also called obsequious. In the way proper to fellow-citizens,
indeed, it is possible to be the friend of many and yet not be
obsequious but a genuinely good man; but one cannot have with many
people the friendship based on virtue and on the character of our
friends themselves, and we must be content if we find even a few such.
11

Do we need friends more in good fortune or in bad? They are sought
after in both; for while men in adversity need help, in prosperity
they need people to live with and to make the objects of their
beneficence; for they wish to do well by others. Friendship, then,
is more necessary in bad fortune, and so it is useful friends that one
wants in this case; but it is more noble in good fortune, and so we
also seek for good men as our friends, since it is more desirable to
confer benefits on these and to live with these. For the very presence
of friends is pleasant both in good fortune and also in bad, since
grief is lightened when friends sorrow with us. Hence one might ask
whether they share as it were our burden, or-without that
happening-their presence by its pleasantness, and the thought of their
grieving with us, make our pain less. Whether it is for these
reasons or for some other that our grief is lightened, is a question
that may be dismissed; at all events what we have described appears to
take place.
But their presence seems to contain a mixture of various factors.
The very seeing of one's friends is pleasant, especially if one is
in adversity, and becomes a safeguard against grief (for a friend
tends to comfort us both by the sight of him and by his words, if he
is tactful, since he knows our character and the things that please or
pain us); but to see him pained at our misfortunes is painful; for
every one shuns being a cause of pain to his friends. For this
reason people of a manly nature guard against making their friends
grieve with them, and, unless he be exceptionally insensible to
pain, such a man cannot stand the pain that ensues for his friends,
and in general does not admit fellow-mourners because he is not
himself given to mourning; but women and womanly men enjoy
sympathisers in their grief, and love them as friends and companions
in sorrow. But in all things one obviously ought to imitate the better
type of person.
On the other hand, the presence of friends in our prosperity implies
both a pleasant passing of our time and the pleasant thought of
their pleasure at our own good fortune. For this cause it would seem
that we ought to summon our friends readily to share our good fortunes
(for the beneficent character is a noble one), but summon them to
our bad fortunes with hesitation; for we ought to give them as
little a share as possible in our evils whence the saying 'enough is
my misfortune'. We should summon friends to us most of all when they
are likely by suffering a few inconveniences to do us a great service.
Conversely, it is fitting to go unasked and readily to the aid of
those in adversity (for it is characteristic of a friend to render
services, and especially to those who are in need and have not
demanded them; such action is nobler and pleasanter for both persons);
but when our friends are prosperous we should join readily in their
activities (for they need friends for these too), but be tardy in
coming forward to be the objects of their kindness; for it is not
noble to be keen to receive benefits. Still, we must no doubt avoid
getting the reputation of kill-joys by repulsing them; for that
sometimes happens.
The presence of friends, then, seems desirable in all circumstances.
12

Does it not follow, then, that, as for lovers the sight of the
beloved is the thing they love most, and they prefer this sense to the
others because on it love depends most for its being and for its
origin, so for friends the most desirable thing is living together?
For friendship is a partnership, and as a man is to himself, so is
he to his friend; now in his own case the consciousness of his being
is desirable, and so therefore is the consciousness of his friend's
being, and the activity of this consciousness is produced when they
live together, so that it is natural that they aim at this. And
whatever existence means for each class of men, whatever it is for
whose sake they value life, in that they wish to occupy themselves
with their friends; and so some drink together, others dice
together, others join in athletic exercises and hunting, or in the
study of philosophy, each class spending their days together in
whatever they love most in life; for since they wish to live with
their friends, they do and share in those things which give them the
sense of living together. Thus the friendship of bad men turns out
an evil thing (for because of their instability they unite in bad
pursuits, and besides they become evil by becoming like each other),
while the friendship of good men is good, being augmented by their
companionship; and they are thought to become better too by their
activities and by improving each other; for from each other they
take the mould of the characteristics they approve-whence the saying
'noble deeds from noble men'.-So much, then, for friendship; our
next task must be to discuss pleasure.