Book 7
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);
5
but when there is an excessive amount of difference, then even the parties themselves do not demand that they ought to be loved in return, or not loved alike—for example, if one were claiming a return of love from God.
