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1155b Nicomachean Ethics are lovers of humanity. And one can see in one's travels how akin and friendly every human being is to every other. Friendship seems also to hold cities together, and lawgivers to care more about it than about justice; for concord seems to be something like friendship, and this is what they aim at most of all, while taking special pains to eliminate civil con¯ict as something hostile. And when people are friends, they have no need of justice, while when they are just, they need friendship as well; and the highest form of justice seems to be a matter of friendship. It is not only a necessary thing, but a noble one as well. We praise those who love their friends, and having many friends seems to be something noble. Again, we think that the same people are good and are friends. There is a great deal of disagreement about friendship. Some people assume that it is a kind of likeness, that people who are alike are friends. Hence the sayings, `Like to like', 61 and `Birds of a feather', and so on. Others claim, on the contrary, that people who are alike are `like potters to one another'. 62 Some people inquire into these questions more deeply and in a way that is more proper to natural science. Euripides claims that: Parched earth loves the rain, And the revered heaven, when ®lled with rain, loves to fall to earth. 63 And Heraclitus says, `Opposition is a helper', and, `From discord comes the noblest harmony,' and, `Everything comes to be through strife.' 64 Others, such as Empedocles, say that, on the contrary, like seeks like. 65 The problems proper to natural science we can put to one side, since they are not germane to the present inquiry; let us consider those that are human and relate to character and feeling. For instance, can friendship arise between all kinds of people, or is it impossible for wicked people to be friends? Is there one species of friendship or several? Some think there is only one, because it admits of degrees, but their conviction is based on insuf®cient evidence; for things of different species also admit of variations of degree. 61 Homer, Iliad xvii.218. 62 Hesiod, Works and Days 25. 63 Euripides, fr. 898 Nauck. 64 Heraclitus, 22 B 8 DK. 65 Cf. Empedocles, frr. 31 B 22, 62, 90 DK. 144

Book VIII Chapter 2 Perhaps the matter will be clari®ed if we can understand what it is that is worthy of love. It seems that not everything is loved, but only what is worthy of love, and this is what is good, pleasant or useful. What is useful, however, would seem to be what is instrumental to some good or pleasure, so that what are worthy of love as ends are the good and the pleasant. So do people love what is good, or what is good for them, since these are occasionally at variance (as happens also with what is pleasant)? Each person, it seems, loves what is good for him, and while what is good is unquali®edly worthy of love, what is worthy of love for each individual is what is good for him. In fact, each person loves not what is good for him, but what seems good; this, however, will make no difference, since we shall say that this is what seems worthy of love. There are three reasons, then, for loving something. Affection for soulless objects is not called friendship, since the affection is not mutual, nor is there any wishing good to the object (it would presumably be absurd to wish good to one's wine ± if anything, one wishes that it keep, so that one may have it oneself ). But people say that we ought to wish good things to a friend for his own sake. People describe those who do wish good things in this way, when the wish is not reciprocated, as having goodwill. For goodwill is said to count as friendship only when it is reciprocated. Perhaps we should add `and when it does not go unrecognized', since many have goodwill towards people they have not seen, but suppose to be good or useful; and the same feeling may exist in the other direction. They appear, then, to have goodwill to each other, but how could anyone call them friends when they are unaware of their attitude to one another? So they must have goodwill to each other, wish good things to each other for one of the reasons given, and not be unaware of it. Chapter 3 Since these reasons differ from one another in species, so do the forms of affection and friendship. There are, then, three species of friendship, equal in number to the objects worthy of it. In the case of each object there is a corresponding mutual affection that does not go unrecognized, 145 1156a