But people
who surpass him in both respects are not so easy to find.
However that may be, the aforesaid friendships involve equality; for
the friends get the same things from one another and wish the same
things for one another, or exchange one thing for another, e.g.
pleasure for utility; we have said, however, that they are both less
truly friendships and less permanent.
But it is from their likeness and their unlikeness to the same thing
that they are thought both to be and not to be friendships. It is by
their likeness to the friendship of virtue that they seem to be
friendships (for one of them involves pleasure and the other
utility, and these characteristics belong to the friendship of
virtue as well); while it is because the friendship of virtue is proof
against slander and permanent, while these quickly change (besides
differing from the former in many other respects), that they appear
not to be friendships; i.e. it is because of their unlikeness to the
friendship of virtue.
7
But there is another kind of friendship, viz. that which involves an
inequality between the parties, e.g. that of father to son and in
general of elder to younger, that of man to wife and in general that
of ruler to subject.
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