Book 8
6
The good man, as we have said, is both useful and pleasant, but the good man does not become the friend of a superior, unless his superior in rank be also his superior in virtue; otherwise the good man as the inferior party cannot make matters proportionally equal.For this proportional equalization of the parties to an unequal friendship see 7.2, 13.1. It would appear that the meaning here is, that unless the great man is also better than the good man, the good man cannot give more love or respect to the great man than the great man gives to him, which is the only way in which the good man can compensate the great man for giving more benefits than he gets, and so be put on an equality; see further on 9.1.1. But potentates of such superior excellence are scarcely common.
7
But to resume: the forms of friendship of which we have spoken are friendships of equality, for both parties render the same benefit and wish the same good to each other, or else exchangei.e., equivalent amounts of two different things. two different benefits, for instance pleasure and profit. (Thesei.e., friendships based on pleasure or utility or both, in contrast to those based on virtue; although the latter also are, of course, friendships of equality. The parenthesis breaks the flow of the argument. are less truly friendships, and less permanent, as we have said; and opinions differ as to whether they are really friendships at all, owing to their being both like and unlike the same thing. In view of their likeness to friendship based on virtue they do appear to be friendships, for the one contains pleasure and the other utility, and these are attributes of that form of friendship too; but in that friendship based on virtue is proof against calumny, and permanent, while the others quickly change, besides differing in many other respects, they appear not to be real friendships, owing to their unlikeness to it.)
