But if you hear that these men in reality suppose good to be placed only in the will, and in a right use of things as they appear, no longer take the trouble of inquiring if they are father and son, or old companions and acquaintances; but boldly pronounce that they are friends, and also that they are faithful and just. For where else can friendship be met, but joined with fidelity and modesty, and the intercommunication of virtue alone? "Well; but such a one paid me the utmost regard for so long a time, and did he not love me?" How can you tell, foolish man, if that regard be any other than he pays to his shoes, or his horse, when he cleans them? And how do you know but that when you cease to be a necessary utensil, he may throw you away, like a broken stool? "Well; but it is my wife, and we have lived together many years." And how many did Eriphyle live with Amphiaraus, and was the mother of children not a few? But a bauble came between them. What was this bauble? A false conviction concerning certain things. This turned her into a savage animal; this cut asunder all love, and suffered neither the wife nor the mother to continue such. Whoever, therefore, among you studies either to be or to gain a friend, let him cut up all false convictions by the root, hate them, drive them utterly out of his soul. Thus, in the first place, he will be secure from inward reproaches and contests, from vacillation and self-torment. Then, with respect to others, to every like-minded person he will be without disguise; to such as are unlike he will be patient, mild, gentle, and ready to forgive them, as failing in points of the greatest importance; but severe to none, being fully convinced of Plato's doctrine, that the soul is never willingly deprived of truth. Without all this, you may, in many respects, live as friends do; and drink and lodge and travel together, and even be born of the same parents; and so may serpents too; but neither they nor you can ever be really friends, while your accustomed principles remain brutal and execrable. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 111: From the "Discourses." Translated by Thomas Wentworth Higginson. Copyright, 1890, by Little, Brown & Co.] [Footnote 112: The Getes were a Thracian people who dwelt north of the Danube, at one time in what is now Bulgaria, and at another in what is Bessarabia.] III THE PHILOSOPHER AND THE CROWD[113]