There are then three causes from which men feel Friendship: but the
term is not applied to the case of fondness for things inanimate
because there is no requital of the affection nor desire for the good
of those objects: it certainly savours of the ridiculous to say that a
man fond of wine wishes well to it: the only sense in which it is true
being that he wishes it to be kept safe and sound for his own use and
benefit.[3] But to the friend they say one should wish all good for his
sake. And when men do thus wish good to another (he not reciprocating
the feeling), people call them Kindly; because Friendship they describe
as being “Kindliness between persons who reciprocate it.” But must they
not add that the feeling must be mutually known? for many men are
kindly disposed towards those whom they have never seen but whom they
conceive to be amiable or useful: and this notion amounts to the same
thing as a real feeling between them.
Well, these are plainly Kindly-disposed towards one another: but how
can one call them friends while their mutual feelings are unknown to
one another? to complete the idea of Friendship, then, it is requisite
that they have kindly feelings towards one another, and wish one
another good from one of the aforementioned causes, and that these
kindly feelings should be mutually known.
Chapter IV.
As the motives to Friendship differ in kind so do the respective
feelings and Friendships. The species then of Friendship are three, in
number equal to the objects of it, since in the line of each there may
be “mutual affection mutually known.”
Now they who have Friendship for one another desire one another’s good
according to the motive of their Friendship; accordingly they whose
motive is utility have no Friendship for one another really, but only
in so far as some good arises to them from one another.
And they whose motive is pleasure are in like case: I mean, they have
Friendship for men of easy pleasantry, not because they are of a given
character but because they are pleasant to themselves. So then they
whose motive to Friendship is utility love their friends for what is
good to themselves; they whose motive is pleasure do so for what is
pleasurable to themselves; that is to say, not in so far as the friend
beloved _is_ but in so far as he is useful or pleasurable. These
Friendships then are a matter of result: since the object is not
beloved in that he is the man he is but in that he furnishes advantage
or pleasure as the case may be.
Such Friendships are of course very liable to dissolution if the
parties do not continue alike: I mean, that the others cease to have
any Friendship for them when they are no longer pleasurable or useful.
Now it is the nature of utility not to be permanent but constantly
varying: so, of course, when the motive which made them friends is
vanished, the Friendship likewise dissolves; since it existed only
relatively to those circumstances.