I am quite at a loss to account for such a conduct on the principles of friendship; for when I daily observe the noblest affections of the mind rooted up by the sordid views of interest, I am in a great doubt whether there is any real friendship and affection in the world.”  “My dear friend,” replied Socrates, “this matter is very intricate; for, if I mistake not, Nature has placed in men the principles both of friendship and dissension.  Of friendship, because they have need of one another, they have compassion of their miseries, they relieve one another in their necessities, and they are grateful for the assistances which they lend one another:  of dissension, because one and the same thing being agreeable to many they contend to have it, and endeavour to prejudice and thwart one another in their designs.  Thus strife and anger beget war, avarice stifles benevolence, envy produces hate.  But friendship overcoming all these difficulties, finds out the virtuous, and unites them together.  For, out of a motive of virtue they choose rather to live quietly in a mean condition, than to gain the empire of the whole earth by the calamities of war.  When they are pinched with hunger or thirst, they endure them with constancy, till they can relieve themselves without being troublesome to any one.  When at any time their desires for the enjoyments of love grow violent and headstrong, then reason, or self-government, lays hold on the reins, checks the impetuosity of the passion, keeps it within due bounds, and will not allow them to transgress the great rule of their duty.  They enjoy what is lawfully their own, and are so far from usurping the rights and properties of others, that they even give them part of what they have.  They agree their differences in such a manner, that all are gainers, and no man has reason to complain.  They are never transported with anger so far as to commit any action of which they may afterwards repent.  Envy is a passion they are ignorant of, because they live in a mutual communication of what they possess, and consider what belongs to their friends as things in their own possession.  From hence you see that the virtuous do not only not oppose, but that they aid one another in the employments of the Republic; for they who seek for honours and great offices, only to have an opportunity of enriching themselves, and exercising a cruel tyranny, or to live an easy and effeminate life, are certainly very wicked and unjust, nor can they ever hope to live in friendship with any man.

“But why should he who desires not any authority, but only the better to defend himself from the wicked, or to assist his friends, or be serviceable to his country; why should such a man, I say, not agree with another, whose intentions are the same with his own?  Is it because he would be less capable to serve the Republic, if he had virtuous associates in the administration of affairs?  If, in the tournaments and other games, the most strong were permitted to enter into