Pagina 567 de 734

If then the being happy consists in living and working, and the

good man's working is in itself excellent and pleasurable (as we

said at the commencement of the treatise), and if what is our own

reckons among things pleasurable, and if we can view our

neighbours better than ourselves and their actions better than we

can our own, then the actions of their Friends who are good men

are pleasurable to the good; inasmuch as they have both the

requisites which are naturally pleasant. So the man in the

highest state of happiness will need Friends of this kind, since

he desires to contemplate good actions, and actions of his own,

which those of his friend, being a good man, are.