Kitap 7
5
Therefore to seek the proper way of associating with a friend is to seek for a particular kind of justice. In fact the whole of justice in general is in relation to a friend, for what is just is just for certain persons; and persons who are partners, and a friend is a partner, either in one’s familyi.e. friend in the sense of relation. or in one’s life. For man is not only a political but also a house-holding animal, and does not, like the other animals, couple occasionally and with any chance female or male,
6
but man is in a special way not a solitary but a gregarious animal, associating with the persons with whom he has a natural kinship; accordingly there would be partnership; and justice of a sort, even if there were no state.
7
And a household is a sort of friendship—or rather the relationships of master and slave is that of craft and tools, and of spirit and body, and such relationships are not friendships or forms of justice but something analogous, just as healthPerhaps the text is corrupt. is not justice but analogous to it.
8
But the friendship of man and wife is one of utility, a partnership; that of father and son is the same as that between god and man and between benefactor and beneficiary, and generally between natural ruler and natural subject.
