This is why
lovers sometimes seem ridiculous, when they demand to be loved as they
love; if they are equally lovable their claim can perhaps be
justified, but when they have nothing lovable about them it is
ridiculous. Perhaps, however, contrary does not even aim at contrary
by its own nature, but only incidentally, the desire being for what is
intermediate; for that is what is good, e.g. it is good for the dry
not to become wet but to come to the intermediate state, and similarly
with the hot and in all other cases. These subjects we may dismiss;
for they are indeed somewhat foreign to our inquiry.
9
Friendship and justice seem, as we have said at the outset of our
discussion, to be concerned with the same objects and exhibited
between the same persons. For in every community there is thought to
be some form of justice, and friendship too; at least men address as
friends their fellow-voyagers and fellowsoldiers, and so too those
associated with them in any other kind of community. And the extent of
their association is the extent of their friendship, as it is the
extent to which justice exists between them. And the proverb 'what
friends have is common property' expresses the truth; for friendship
depends on community.
Pages:
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265