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.
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.
Friendship of this kind is thought to exist principally
among the old (because men at that time of life pursue
not what is pleasurable but what is profitable); and
in such, of men in their prime and of the young, as
are given to the pursuit of profit. They that
are such have no intimate intercourse with one another;
for sometimes they are not even pleasurable to one
another; nor, in fact, do they desire such intercourse
unless their friends are profitable to them, because
they are pleasurable only in so far as they have hopes
of advantage. With these Friendships is commonly
ranked that of hospitality.
But the Friendship of the young is thought to be based
on the motive of pleasure: because they live
at the beck and call of passion and generally pursue
what is pleasurable to themselves and the object of
the present moment: and as their age changes
so likewise do their pleasures.
