The Nicomachean Ethics — trans. F. H. Peters (1881)

to mean that which helps us to get something good, or some pleasure ; so that the good and the pleasant only would be loved as ends.

Now, do men love what is good, or what is good 2 for themselves ? for there is sometimes a discrepancy between these two.

The same question may be asked about the pleasant.

It seems that each man loves what is good for himself, and that, while the good is lovable in itself, that is lovable to each man which is good for him. It may be said that each man loves not what is really good for him, but what seems good for him. But this will make no difference ; for the lovable we are speaking of will then be the apparently lovable.

The motives of love being thus threefold, the love 3 of inanimate things is not called friendship. For there is no return of affection here, nor any wish for the good of the object : it would be absurd to wish well to wine, for instance ; at the most, we wish that it may keep well, in order that we may have it. But it is commonly said that we must wish our friend's good for his own sake. One who thus wishes the good of another is called a well-wisher, when the wish is not reciprocated; when the well-wishing is mutual, it is called friendship.

But ought we not to add that each must be aware 4 of the other's weU- wishing ? For a man often wishes well to those whom he has never seen, but supposes to be good or useful men ; and one of these may have the same sentiments towards him. These two, then, are plainly well-wishers one of another; but how

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cv'iild one call them friends when each is unaware of the other's feelings ?

In order to be friends, then, they must be well-vvishers one of another, i.e. must wish each other's good from one of the three motives above mentioned, and be aware of each other's feelings.

3. But these three motives are specifically different Three kinds 111 one another ; the several afiections and friend- ship, eorre- : ps based upon them, therefore, will also be specific- the three aiiy difierent. The kinds of friendship accordincrly ferfect

11- 1 • 1 1 • ''^ friendship i* are three, bemor equal in number to the motives of that icAm«

<• 1 1 1 1 • /• motive it love; for any one of these may be the basis of a, the good. mutual afiection of which each is aware.

Now, those who love one another wish each other's good in respect of that which is the motive of their love. Those, therefore, whose love for one another is based on the useful, do not love each other for what they are, but only in so far as each

ts some good from the other.
It is the same also with those whose afiection is
1 ased on pleasure ; people care for a wit, for instance,

t for what he is, but as the source of pleasure to

'--mselves. Those, then, whose love is based on the useful care for each other on the ground of their own good, and those whose love is based on pleasure care for each other on the ground of what is pleasant to themselves, each loving the other, not as being what he is, but as useful or pleasant.

These friendships, then, are " accidental ; " for the object of afiection is loved, not as being the person or character that he is, but as the source of some good

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or some pleasure. Friendships of this kind, therefore, are easily dissolved, as the persons do not continue unchanged ; for if they cease to be pleasant or useful to one another, their love ceases. But the useful is nothing permanent, but varies from time to time. On the disappearance, therefore, of that which was the motive of their friendship, the friendship itself is dissolved, since it existed solely with a view to that.

Friendship of this kind seems especially to be found among elderly men (for at that time of life men pursue the useful rather than the pleasant) and those middle-aged and young men who have a keen eye to what is profitable. But friends of this kind do not generally even live together ; for sometimes they are by no means pleasant (nor indeed do they want such constant intercourse with others, unless they are useful) ; for they make themselves pleasant only just so far as they have hopes of getting something good thereby.