A
certain training in virtue arises also from the company of the good,
as Theognis has said before us.
If we look deeper into the nature of things, a virtuous friend seems
to be naturally desirable for a virtuous man. For that which is good
by nature, we have said, is for the virtuous man good and pleasant
in itself. Now life is defined in the case of animals by the power
of perception in that of man by the power of perception or thought;
and a power is defined by reference to the corresponding activity,
which is the essential thing; therefore life seems to be essentially
the act of perceiving or thinking. And life is among the things that
are good and pleasant in themselves, since it is determinate and the
determinate is of the nature of the good; and that which is good by
nature is also good for the virtuous man (which is the reason why life
seems pleasant to all men); but we must not apply this to a wicked and
corrupt life nor to a life spent in pain; for such a life is
indeterminate, as are its attributes. The nature of pain will become
plainer in what follows. But if life itself is good and pleasant
(which it seems to be, from the very fact that all men desire it,
and particularly those who are good and supremely happy; for to such
men life is most desirable, and their existence is the most
supremely happy) and if he who sees perceives that he sees, and he who
hears, that he hears, and he who walks, that he walks, and in the case
of all other activities similarly there is something which perceives
that we are active, so that if we perceive, we perceive that we
perceive, and if we think, that we think; and if to perceive that we
perceive or think is to perceive that we exist (for existence was
defined as perceiving or thinking); and if perceiving that one lives
is in itself one of the things that are pleasant (for life is by
nature good, and to perceive what is good present in oneself is
pleasant); and if life is desirable, and particularly so for good men,
because to them existence is good and pleasant for they are pleased at
the consciousness of the presence in them of what is in itself
good); and if as the virtuous man is to himself, he is to his friend
also (for his friend is another self):-if all this be true, as his own
being is desirable for each man, so, or almost so, is that of his
friend.
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