13
There are three kinds of friendship, as we said at the outset of our
inquiry, and in respect of each some are friends on an equality and
others by virtue of a superiority (for not only can equally good men
become friends but a better man can make friends with a worse, and
similarly in friendships of pleasure or utility the friends may be
equal or unequal in the benefits they confer). This being so, equals
must effect the required equalization on a basis of equality in love
and in all other respects, while unequals must render what is in
proportion to their superiority or inferiority. Complaints and
reproaches arise either only or chiefly in the friendship of
utility, and this is only to be expected. For those who are friends on
the ground of virtue are anxious to do well by each other (since
that is a mark of virtue and of friendship), and between men who are
emulating each other in this there cannot be complaints or quarrels;
no one is offended by a man who loves him and does well by him-if he
is a person of nice feeling he takes his revenge by doing well by
the other. And the man who excels the other in the services he renders
will not complain of his friend, since he gets what he aims at; for
each man desires what is good.
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