And I say, my boys, that no one who loves or desires another would ever have loved or desired or affected him, if he had not been in some way congenial to him, either in his soul, or in his character, or in his manners, or in his form. Yes, yes, said Menexenus. But Lysis was silent. Then, I said, the conclusion is, that what is of a congenial nature must be loved. It follows, he said. Then the lover, who is true and no counterfeit, must of necessity be loved by his love. Lysis and Menexenus gave a faint assent to this; and Hippothales changed into all manner of colours with delight. Here, intending to revise the argument, I said: Can we point out any difference between the congenial and the like? For if that is possible, then I think, Lysis and Menexenus, there may be some sense in our argument about friendship. But if the congenial is only the like, how will you get rid of the other argument, of the uselessness of like to like in as far as they are like; for to say that what is useless is dear, would be absurd? Suppose, then, that we agree to distinguish between the congenial and the like--in the intoxication of argument, that may perhaps be allowed. Very true. And shall we further say that the good is congenial, and the evil uncongenial to every one? Or again that the evil is congenial to the evil, and the good to the good; and that which is neither good nor evil to that which is neither good nor evil? They agreed to the latter alternative. Then, my boys, we have again fallen into the old discarded error; for the unjust will be the friend of the unjust, and the bad of the bad, as well as the good of the good. That appears to be the result. But again, if we say that the congenial is the same as the good, in that case the good and he only will be the friend of the good. True. But that too was a position of ours which, as you will remember, has been already refuted by ourselves. We remember. Then what is to be done? Or rather is there anything to be done? I can only, like the wise men who argue in courts, sum up the arguments:--If neither the beloved, nor the lover, nor the like, nor the unlike, nor the good, nor the congenial, nor any other of whom we spoke--for there were such a number of them that I cannot remember all--if none of these are friends, I know not what remains to be said. Here I was going to invite the opinion of some older person, when suddenly we were interrupted by the tutors of Lysis and Menexenus, who came upon us like an evil apparition with their brothers, and bade them go home, as it was getting late. At first, we and the by-standers drove them off; but afterwards, as they would not mind, and only went on shouting in their barbarous dialect, and got angry, and kept calling the boys--they appeared to us to have been drinking rather too much at the Hermaea, which made them difficult to manage--we fairly gave way and broke up the company.