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Furthermore, Friendship helps the young to keep from error: the

old, in respect of attention and such deficiencies in action as

their weakness makes them liable to; and those who are in their

prime, in respect of noble deeds ("They two together going,"

Homer says, you may remember), because they are thus more able to

devise plans and carry them out.

Again, it seems to be implanted in us by Nature: as, for

instance, in the parent towards the offspring and the offspring

towards the parent (not merely in the human species, but likewise

in birds and most animals), and in those of the same tribe

towards one another, and specially in men of the same nation; for

which reason we commend those men who love their fellows: and one

may see in the course of travel how close of kin and how friendly

man is to man.