Further; just as in respect of the different virtues some men are
termed good in respect of a certain inward state, others in respect of
acts of working, so is it in respect of Friendship: I mean, they who
live together take pleasure in, and impart good to, one another: but
they who are asleep or are locally separated do not perform acts, but
only are in such a state as to act in a friendly way if they acted at
all: distance has in itself no direct effect upon Friendship, but only
prevents the acting it out: yet, if the absence be protracted, it is
thought to cause a forgetfulness even of the Friendship: and hence it
has been said, “many and many a Friendship doth want of intercourse
destroy.”
Accordingly, neither the old nor the morose appear to be calculated for
Friendship, because the pleasurableness in them is small, and no one
can spend his days in company with that which is positively painful or
even not pleasurable; since to avoid the painful and aim at the
pleasurable is one of the most obvious tendencies of human nature. They
who get on with one another very fairly, but are not in habits of
intimacy, are rather like people having kindly feelings towards one
another than friends; nothing being so characteristic of friends as the
living with one another, because the necessitous desire assistance, and
the happy companionship, they being the last persons in the world for
solitary existence: but people cannot spend their time together unless
they are mutually pleasurable and take pleasure in the same objects, a
quality which is thought to appertain to the Friendship of
companionship.
Chapter VII.
The connection then subsisting between the good is Friendship _par
excellence_, as has already been frequently said: since that which is
abstractedly good or pleasant is thought to be an object of Friendship
and choice-worthy, and to each individual whatever is such to him; and
the good man to the good man for both these reasons.
(Now the entertaining the sentiment is like a feeling, but Friendship
itself like a state: because the former may have for its object even
things inanimate, but requital of Friendship is attended with moral
choice which proceeds from a moral state: and again, men wish good to
the objects of their Friendship for their sakes, not in the way of a
mere feeling but of moral state.)
And the good, in loving their friend, love their own good (inasmuch as
the good man, when brought into that relation, becomes a good to him
with whom he is so connected), so that either party loves his own good,
and repays his friend equally both in wishing well and in the
pleasurable: for equality is said to be a tie of Friendship. Well,
these points belong most to the Friendship between good men.