4
Friendly relations with one's neighbours, and the marks by which
friendships are defined, seem to have proceeded from a man's relations
to himself. For (1) we define a friend as one who wishes and does what
is good, or seems so, for the sake of his friend, or (2) as one who
wishes his friend to exist and live, for his sake; which mothers do to
their children, and friends do who have come into conflict. And (3)
others define him as one who lives with and (4) has the same tastes as
another, or (5) one who grieves and rejoices with his friend; and this
too is found in mothers most of all. It is by some one of these
characterstics that friendship too is defined.
Now each of these is true of the good man's relation to himself (and
of all other men in so far as they think themselves good; virtue and
the good man seem, as has been said, to be the measure of every
class of things). For his opinions are harmonious, and he desires
the same things with all his soul; and therefore he wishes for himself
what is good and what seems so, and does it (for it is
characteristic of the good man to work out the good), and does so
for his own sake (for he does it for the sake of the intellectual
element in him, which is thought to be the man himself); and he wishes
himself to live and be preserved, and especially the element by virtue
of which he thinks.
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