In general, goodwill arises on account
of some excellence and worth, when one man seems to another
beautiful or brave or something of the sort, as we pointed out in
the case of competitors in a contest.
6
Unanimity also seems to be a friendly relation. For this reason it
is not identity of opinion; for that might occur even with people
who do not know each other; nor do we say that people who have the
same views on any and every subject are unanimous, e.g. those who
agree about the heavenly bodies (for unanimity about these is not a
friendly relation), but we do say that a city is unanimous when men
have the same opinion about what is to their interest, and choose
the same actions, and do what they have resolved in common. It is
about things to be done, therefore, that people are said to be
unanimous, and, among these, about matters of consequence and in which
it is possible for both or all parties to get what they want; e.g. a
city is unanimous when all its citizens think that the offices in it
should be elective, or that they should form an alliance with
Sparta, or that Pittacus should be their ruler-at a time when he
himself was also willing to rule. But when each of two people wishes
himself to have the thing in question, like the captains in the
Phoenissae, they are in a state of faction; for it is not unanimity
when each of two parties thinks of the same thing, whatever that may
be, but only when they think of the same thing in the same hands, e.
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