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Nicomachean Ethics/129
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 dis-
solved, 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 friend-
ship 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
130/Aristotle
them; but with increasing age their pleasures become different. This is
why they quickly become friends and quickly cease to be so; their friend-
ship 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 to-
gether; 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 qualifica-
tion 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 pleas-
ant, and these are the most lovable qualities. Love and friendship there-
fore 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.
Nicomachean Ethics/131
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 hap-
pen between friends. Friendship for the sake of pleasure bears a resem-
blance 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.
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