The Nicomachean ethics of Aristotle
kindly disposed towards those whom they have never seen but whom they
conceive to be amiable or useful: and this notion amounts to the same
thing as a real feeling between them.
Well, these are plainly Kindly-disposed towards one another: but how
can one call them friends while their mutual feelings are unknown to
one another? to complete the idea of Friendship, then, it is requisite
that they have kindly feelings towards one another, and wish one
another good from one of the aforementioned causes, and that these
kindly feelings should be mutually known.
Chapter IV.
As the motives to Friendship differ in kind so do the respective
feelings and Friendships. The species then of Friendship are three, in
number equal to the objects of it, since in the line of each there may
be “mutual affection mutually known.”
Now they who have Friendship for one another desire one another’s good
according to the motive of their Friendship; accordingly they whose
motive is utility have no Friendship for one another really, but only
in so far as some good arises to them from one another.
And they whose motive is pleasure are in like case: I mean, they have
Friendship for men of easy pleasantry, not because they are of a given
character but because they are pleasant to themselves. So then they
whose motive to Friendship is utility love their friends for what is
good to themselves; they whose motive is pleasure do so for what is
pleasurable to themselves; that is to say, not in so far as the friend
beloved _is_ but in so far as he is useful or pleasurable. These
Friendships then are a matter of result: since the object is not
beloved in that he is the man he is but in that he furnishes advantage
or pleasure as the case may be.
Such Friendships are of course very liable to dissolution if the
parties do not continue alike: I mean, that the others cease to have
any Friendship for them when they are no longer pleasurable or useful.
Now it is the nature of utility not to be permanent but constantly
varying: so, of course, when the motive which made them friends is
vanished, the Friendship likewise dissolves; since it existed only
relatively to those circumstances.
Friendship of this kind is thought to exist principally among the old
(because men at that time of life pursue not what is pleasurable but
what is profitable); and in such, of men in their prime and of the
young, as are given to the pursuit of profit. They that are such have
no intimate intercourse with one another; for sometimes they are not
even pleasurable to one another; nor, in fact, do they desire such
intercourse unless their friends are profitable to them, because they
are pleasurable only in so far as they have hopes of advantage. With
these Friendships is commonly ranked that of hospitality.
But the Friendship of the young is thought to be based on the motive of
pleasure: because they live at the beck and call of passion and
generally pursue what is pleasurable to themselves and the object of
the present moment: and as their age changes so likewise do their
pleasures.
This is the reason why they form and dissolve Friendships rapidly:
since the Friendship changes with the pleasurable object and such
pleasure changes quickly.
The young are also much given up to Love; this passion being, in great
measure, a matter of impulse and based on pleasure: for which cause
they conceive Friendships and quickly drop them, changing often in the
same day: but these wish for society and intimate intercourse with
their friends, since they thus attain the object of their Friendship.
Chapter V.
That then is perfect Friendship which subsists between those who are
good and whose similarity consists in their goodness: for these men
wish one another’s good in similar ways; in so far as they are good
(and good they are in themselves); and those are specially friends who
wish good to their friends for their sakes, because they feel thus
towards them on their own account and not as a mere matter of result;
so the Friendship between these men continues to subsist so long as
they are good; and goodness, we know, has in it a principle of
permanence.
Moreover, each party is good abstractedly and also relatively to his
friend, for all good men are not only abstractedly good but also useful
to one another. Such friends are also mutually pleasurable because all
good men are so abstractedly, and also relatively to one another,
inasmuch as to each individual those actions are pleasurable which
correspond to his nature, and all such as are like them. Now when men
are good these will be always the same, or at least similar.
Friendship then under these circumstances is permanent, as we should
reasonably expect, since it combines in itself all the requisite
qualifications of friends. I mean, that Friendship of whatever kind is
based upon good or pleasure (either abstractedly or relatively to the
person entertaining the sentiment of Friendship), and results from a
similarity of some sort; and to this kind belong all the aforementioned
requisites in the parties themselves, because in this the parties are
similar, and so on:[4] moreover, in it there is the abstractedly good
and the abstractedly pleasant, and as these are specially the
object-matter of Friendship so the feeling and the state of Friendship
is found most intense and most excellent in men thus qualified.
Rare it is probable Friendships of this kind will be, because men of
this kind are rare. Besides, all requisite qualifications being
presupposed, there is further required time and intimacy: for, as the
proverb says, men cannot know one another “till they have eaten the
requisite quantity of salt together;” nor can they in fact admit one
another to intimacy, much less be friends, till each has appeared to
the other and been proved to be a fit object of Friendship. They who
speedily commence an interchange of friendly actions may be said to
wish to be friends, but they are not so unless they are also proper
objects of Friendship and mutually known to be such: that is to say, a
desire for Friendship may arise quickly but not Friendship itself.
Well, this Friendship is perfect both in respect of the time and in all
other points; and exactly the same and similar results accrue to each
party from the other; which ought to be the case between friends.
The friendship based upon the pleasurable is, so to say, a copy of
this, since the good are sources of pleasure to one another: and that
based on utility likewise, the good being also useful to one another.
Between men thus connected Friendships are most permanent when the same
result accrues to both from one another, pleasure, for instance; and
not merely so but from the same source, as in the case of two men of
easy pleasantry; and not as it is in that of a lover and the object of
his affection, these not deriving their pleasure from the same causes,
but the former from seeing the latter and the latter from receiving the
attentions of the former: and when the bloom of youth fades the
Friendship sometimes ceases also, because then the lover derives no
pleasure from seeing and the object of his affection ceases to receive
the attentions which were paid before: in many cases, however, people
so connected continue friends, if being of similar tempers they have
come from custom to like one another’s disposition.
Where people do not interchange pleasure but profit in matters of Love,
the Friendship is both less intense in degree and also less permanent:
in fact, they who are friends because of advantage commonly part when
the advantage ceases; for, in reality, they never were friends of one
another but of the advantage.
So then it appears that from motives of pleasure or profit bad men may
be friends to one another, or good men to bad men or men of neutral
character to one of any character whatever: but disinterestedly, for
the sake of one another, plainly the good alone can be friends; because
bad men have no pleasure even in themselves unless in so far as some
advantage arises.
And further, the Friendship of the good is alone superior to calumny;
it not being easy for men to believe a third person respecting one whom
they have long tried and proved: there is between good men mutual
confidence, and the feeling that one’s friend would never have done one
wrong, and all other such things as are expected in Friendship really
worthy the name; but in the other kinds there is nothing to prevent all
such suspicions.
I call them Friendships, because since men commonly give the name of
friends to those who are connected from motives of profit (which is
justified by political language, for alliances between states are
thought to be contracted with a view to advantage), and to those who
are attached to one another by the motive of pleasure (as children
are), we may perhaps also be allowed to call such persons friends, and
say there are several species of Friendship; primarily and specially
that of the good, in that they are good, and the rest only in the way
of resemblance: I mean, people connected otherwise are friends in that
way in which there arises to them somewhat good and some mutual
resemblance (because, we must remember the pleasurable is good to those
who are fond of it).
These secondary Friendships, however, do not combine very well; that is
to say, the same persons do not become friends by reason of advantage
and by reason of the pleasurable, for these matters of result are not
often combined. And Friendship having been divided into these kinds,
bad men will be friends by reason of pleasure or profit, this being
their point of resemblance; while the good are friends for one
another’s sake, that is, in so far as they are good.
These last may be termed abstractedly and simply friends, the former as
a matter of result and termed friends from their resemblance to these
last.
Chapter VI.
Further; just as in respect of the different virtues some men are
termed good in respect of a certain inward state, others in respect of
acts of working, so is it in respect of Friendship: I mean, they who
live together take pleasure in, and impart good to, one another: but
they who are asleep or are locally separated do not perform acts, but
only are in such a state as to act in a friendly way if they acted at
all: distance has in itself no direct effect upon Friendship, but only
prevents the acting it out: yet, if the absence be protracted, it is
thought to cause a forgetfulness even of the Friendship: and hence it
has been said, “many and many a Friendship doth want of intercourse
destroy.”
Accordingly, neither the old nor the morose appear to be calculated for
Friendship, because the pleasurableness in them is small, and no one
can spend his days in company with that which is positively painful or
even not pleasurable; since to avoid the painful and aim at the
pleasurable is one of the most obvious tendencies of human nature. They
who get on with one another very fairly, but are not in habits of
intimacy, are rather like people having kindly feelings towards one
another than friends; nothing being so characteristic of friends as the
living with one another, because the necessitous desire assistance, and
the happy companionship, they being the last persons in the world for
solitary existence: but people cannot spend their time together unless
they are mutually pleasurable and take pleasure in the same objects, a
quality which is thought to appertain to the Friendship of
companionship.
Chapter VII.
The connection then subsisting between the good is Friendship _par
excellence_, as has already been frequently said: since that which is
abstractedly good or pleasant is thought to be an object of Friendship