Book 7
7
This is clear in cases of passionate affection, for this is often a cause of combat between the lover and his beloved: the lover does not see that they have not the same reason for their affection. Hence AenicusA dramatist of the Old Comedy. has said: A loved one so would speak, but not a lover. But they think that the reason is the same.
1
There being then, as has been said,See Aristot. Eud. Eth. 1236a 7-1237b 15. three kinds of friendship, based on goodness, utility and pleasantness, these are again divided in two, one set being on a footing of equality and the other on one of superiority.
2
Though both sets, therefore, are friendships, only when they are on an equality are the parties friends; for it would be absurd for a man to be a friend of a child, though he does feel affection for him and receive it from him. In some cases, while the superior partner ought to receive affection, if he gives it he is reproached as loving an unworthy object; for affection is measured by the worth of the friends and by one sort of equality.i.e. proportional equality: see note on Aristot. Eud. Eth. 1238b 21.
3
So in some cases there is properly a dissimilarity of affection because of inferiority of age, in others on the ground of goodness or birth or some other such superiority; it is right for the superior to claim to feelOr one ought to expect the superior to feel . . . either less affection or none, alike in a friendship of utility and in one of pleasure and one based on goodness.
4
So in cases of small degrees of superiority disputes naturally occur (for a small amount is not of importance in some matters, as in weighing timber, though in gold plate it is; but people judge smallness of amount badly, since one’s own good because of its nearness appears big and that of others because of its remoteness small);
