Now the [Greek: Prô=ton phi/lon] or Primum Amabile which we find in the Lysis, is described as the principium or initial root of one of these imperfectly united aggregates; ramifying into many branches more or less distant, in obedience to one or other of the different laws of association. Aristotle expresses the same idea in another form of words: instead of a Primum Amabile, he gives us a Prima Amicitia--affirming that the diversities of friendship are not species comprehended under the same genus, but gradations or degeneracies departing in one direction or other from the First or pure Friendship. The Primum Amabile, in Plato's view, appears to be the Good, though he does not explicitly declare it: the Prima Amicitia, with Aristotle, is friendship subsisting between two good persons, who have had sufficient experience to know, esteem, and trust, each other.[47] [Footnote 47: Aristotel. Eth. Nikom. viii. 2, 1155, b. 12, viii. 5, 1157, a. 30, viii. 4; Eth. Eudem. vii. 2, 1236, a. 15. The statement is more full in the Eudemian Ethics than in the Nikomachean; he begins the seventh book by saying that [Greek: phili/a] is not said [Greek: monachô=s] but [Greek: pleonachô=s]; and in p. 1236 he says [Greek: A)na/gkê a)/ra tri/a phili/as ei)/dê ei)=nai, kai\ _mête kath' e(\n a(pa/sas_ mêth' ô(s _ei)/dê e(no\s ge/nous_, mê/te pa/mpan le/gesthai o(mônu/môs; pro\s _mi/an ga/r tina le/gontai kai\ prô/tên, ô(/sper to\ i)atriko/n_], &c. The whole passage is instructive, but is too long to cite. Bonitz gives some good explanations of these passages. Observationes Criticæ in Aristotelis quæ feruntur _Magna Moralia_ et _Eudemia_, pp. 55-57.] [Side-note: The Good and Beautiful, considered as objects of attachment.] In regard to the Platonic Lysis, I have already observed that no positive result can be found in it, and that all the hypotheses broached are successively negatived. What is kept before the reader's mind, however, more than anything else, though not embodied in any distinct formula, is--The Good and the Beautiful considered as objects of love or attachment. CHAPTER XXI. EUTHYDEMUS. [Side-note: Dramatic and comic exuberance of the Euthydêmus. Judgments of various critics.]