Now those who die for
others doubtless attain this result; it is therefore a great prize
that they choose for themselves. They will throw away wealth too on
condition that their friends will gain more; for while a man's
friend gains wealth he himself achieves nobility; he is therefore
assigning the greater good to himself. The same too is true of
honour and office; all these things he will sacrifice to his friend;
for this is noble and laudable for himself. Rightly then is he thought
to be good, since he chooses nobility before all else. But he may even
give up actions to his friend; it may be nobler to become the cause of
his friend's acting than to act himself. In all the actions,
therefore, that men are praised for, the good man is seen to assign to
himself the greater share in what is noble. In this sense, then, as
has been said, a man should be a lover of self; but in the sense in
which most men are so, he ought not.
9
It is also disputed whether the happy man will need friends or
not. It is said that those who are supremely happy and self-sufficient
have no need of friends; for they have the things that are good, and
therefore being self-sufficient they need nothing further, while a
friend, being another self, furnishes what a man cannot provide by his
own effort; whence the saying 'when fortune is kind, what need of
friends?' But it seems strange, when one assigns all good things to
the happy man, not to assign friends, who are thought the greatest
of external goods.
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