Kitap 8
2
Friendship between relatives itself seems to include a variety of species, but all appear to derive from the affection of parent for child. For parents love their children as part of themselves, whereas children love their parents as the source of their being. Also parents know their offspring with more certainty than children know their parentage; and progenitor is more attached to progeny than progeny to progenitor, since that which springs from a thing belongs to the thing from which it springs—for instance, a tooth or hair or what not to its owner—whereas the thing it springs from does not belong to it at all, or only in a less degree. The affection of the parent exceeds that of the child in duration also; parents love their children as soon as they are born, children their parents only when time has elapsed and they have acquired understanding,Cf. 6.11.2 and note. or at least perception.
3
These considerationsThat is, greater certainty of parentage, closer affinity and earlier commencement of affection. also explain why parental affection is stronger in the mother. Parents then love their children as themselves (one’s offspring being as it were another self—other because separateOr a second self produced by separation from oneself.); children love their parents as the source of their being; brothers love each other as being from the same source, since the identity of their relations to that source identifies them with one another, which is why we speak of being of the same blood or of the same stock or the like; brothers are therefore in a manner the same being, though embodied in separate persons.
