Pagina 479 di 734

Now all the kinds of Friendship which have been already mentioned

exist in a state of equality, inasmuch as either the same results

accrue to both and they wish the same things to one another, or

else they barter one thing against another; pleasure, for

instance, against profit: it has been said already that

Friendships of this latter kind are less intense in degree and

less permanent.

And it is their resemblance or dissimilarity to the same thing

which makes them to be thought to be and not to be Friendships:

they show like Friendships in right of their likeness to that

which is based on virtue (the one kind having the pleasurable,

the other the profitable, both of which belong also to the

other); and again, they do not show like Friendships by reason of

their unlikeness to that true kind; which unlikeness consists

herein, that while that is above calumny and so permanent these

quickly change and differ in many other points.