Kitap 7
1
But as the term friend is used in a more universal sense as well, as was also said at the beginning,Aristot. Eud. Eth. 1235a 4 ff. by those who take in wider considerations (some saying that what is like is dear, others what is opposite), we must also speak about these forms of friendship and their relation to the kinds that have been discussed.
2
As for likeness, it connects with pleasantness and also with goodness. For the good is simple, whereas the bad is multiform; and also the good man is always alike and does not change in character, whereas the wicked and the foolish are quite different in the evening from what they were in the morning.
3
Hence if wicked men do not hit it off together, they are not friends with one another but they separate; yet an insecure friendship is not friendship at all. So the like is dear to us in this way, because the good is like. But in a way it is also dear on the score of pleasantness; for to those who are alike the same things are pleasant, and also everything is by nature pleasant to itself.
4
Owing to this relations find one another’s voices and characters and society pleasantest, and so with the lower animals; and in this way it is possible even for bad men to feel affection for each other: But pleasure welds the bad man to the bad.Cf. Aristot. Eud. Eth. 1238a 34 note.
