Sokrates dissatisfied. He originates a new suggestion. The Primum Amabile, or object originally dear to us, per se: by relation or resemblance to which other objects become dear.
The two young collocutors with Sokrates welcome this explanation heartily, and Sokrates himself appears for the moment satisfied with it. But he presently bethinks himself, and exclaims, Ah! Lysis and Menexenus, our wealth is all a dream! we have been yielding again to delusions! Let us once more examine. You will admit that all friendship is on account of something and for the sake of something: it is relative both to some producing cause, and to some prospective end. Thus the body, which is in itself neither good nor evil, becomes when sick a friend to the medical art: on account of sickness, which is an evil — and for the sake of health, which is a good. The medical art is dear to us, because health is dear: but is there any thing behind, for the sake of which health also is dear? It is plain that we cannot push the series of references onward for ever, and that we must come ultimately to something which is dear per se, not from reference to any ulterior aliud. We must come to some primum amabile, dear by its own nature, to which all other dear things refer, and from which they are derivatives.[20] It is this primum amabile which is the primitive, essential, and constant, object of our affections: we love other things only from their being associated with it. Thus suppose a father tenderly attached to his son, and that the son has drunk hemlock, for which wine is an antidote; the father will come by association to prize highly, not merely the wine which saves his son’s life, but even the cup in which the wine is contained. Yet it would be wrong to say that he prizes the wine or the cup as much as his son: for the truth is, that all his solicitude is really on behalf of his son, and extends only in a derivative and secondary way to the wine and the cup. So about gold and silver: we talk of prizing highly gold and silver — but this is incorrect, for what we really prize is not gold, but the ulterior something, whatever it be, for the attainment of which gold and other instrumental means are accumulated. In general terms — when we say that B is dear on account of A, we are really speaking of A under the name of B. What is really dear, is that primitive object of love, primum amabile, towards which all the affections which we bear to other things, refer and tend.[21]
[20] Plato, Lysis, 219 C-D. Ἆρ’ οὖν οὐκ ἀνάγκη ἀπειπεῖν ἡμᾶς οὕτως ἰόντας, καὶ ἀφικέσθαι ἐπί τινα ἀρχὴν, ἢ οὐκέτ’ ἐπανοίσει ἐπ’ ἄλλο φίλον, ἀλλ’ ἥξει ἐπ’ ἐκεῖνο ὅ ἐστι πρῶτον φίλον, οὗ ἕνεκα καὶ τἄλλα φαμὲν πάντα φίλα εἶναι;
[21] Plato, Lysis, c. 37, p. 220 B. Ὅσα γάρ φαμεν φίλα εἶναι ἡμῖν ἕνεκα φίλου τινός, ἑτέρῳ ῥήματι φαινόμεθα λέγοντες αὐτό· φίλον δὲ τῷ ὄντι κινδυνεύει ἐκεῖνο αὐτὸ, εἰς ὃ πᾶσαι αὗται αἱ λεγόμεναι φιλίαι τελευτῶσιν.
The cause of love is desire. We desire that which is akin to us or our own.
Is it then true (continues Sokrates) that good is our primum amabile, and dear to us in itself? If so, is it dear to us on account of evil? that is, only as a remedy for evil; so that if evil were totally banished, good would cease to be prized? Is it true that evil is the cause why any thing is dear to us?[22] This cannot be: because even if all evil were banished, the appetites and desires, such of them as were neither good nor evil, would still remain: and the things which gratify those appetites will be dear to us. It is not therefore true that evil is the cause of things being dear to us. We have just found out another cause for loving and being loved — desire. He who desires, loves what he desires and as long as he desires: he desires moreover that of which he is in want, and he is in want of that which has been taken away from him — of his own.[23] It is therefore this own which is the appropriate object of desire, friendship, and love. If you two, Lysis and Menexenus, love each other, it is because you are somehow of kindred nature with each other. The lover would not become a lover, unless there were, between him and his beloved, a certain kinship or affinity in mind, disposition, tastes, or form. We love, by necessary law, that which has a natural affinity to us; so that the real and genuine lover may be certain of a return of affection from his beloved.[24]
[22] Plato, Lysis, 220 D. We may see that in this chapter Plato runs into a confusion between τὸ διά τι and τὸ ἕνεκά του, which two he began by carefully distinguishing. Thus in 218 D he says, ὁ φίλος ἐστὶ τῳ φίλος — ἕνεκά του καὶ διά τι. Again 219 A, he says — τὸ σῶμα τῆς ἰατρικῆς φίλον ἐστίν, διὰ τὴν νόσον, ἕνεκα τῆς ὑγιείας. This is a very clear and important distinction.
It is continued in 220 D — ὅτι διὰ τὸ κακὸν τἀγαθὸν ἠγαπῶμεν καὶ ἐφιλοῦμεν, ὡς φάρμακον ὂν τοῦ κακοῦ τὸ ἀγαθόν, τὸ δὲ κακόν νόσμα. But in 220 E — τὸ δὲ τῷ ὄντι φίλον πᾶν τοὐναντίον τούτου φαίνεται πεφυκός· φίλον γὰρ ἡμῖν ἀνεφάνη ὃν ἑχθροῦ ἕνεκα. To make the reasoning consistent with what had gone before, these two last words ought to be exchanged for διὰ τὸ ἐχθρόν. Plato had laid down the doctrine that good is loved — διὰ τὸ κακόν, not ἕνεκα τοῦ κακοῦ. Good is loved on account of evil, but for the sake of obtaining a remedy to or cessation of the evil.
Steinhart (in his note on Hieron. Müller’s translation of Plato, p. 268) calls this a “sophistisches Räthselspiel”; and he notes other portions of the dialogue which “remind us of the deceptive tricks of the Sophists” (die Trugspiele der Sophisten, see p. 222-224-227-230). He praises Plato here for his “fine pleasantry on the deceptive arts of the Sophists”. Admitting that Plato puts forward sophistical quibbles with the word φίλος, he tells us that this is suitable for the purpose of puzzling the contentious young man Menexenus. The confusion between ἕνεκά του and διά τι (noticed above) appears to be numbered by Steinhart among the fine jests against Protagoras, Prodikus, or some of the Sophists. I can see nothing in it except an unconscious inaccuracy in Plato’s reasoning.
[23] Plato, Lysis, 221 E. Τὸ ἐπιθυμοῦν οὗ ἂν ἐνδεὲς ᾖ, τούτου ἐπιθυμεῖ — ἐνδεὲς δὲ γίγνεται οὗ ἄν τις ἀφαιρῆται — τοῦ οἰκείου δή, ὡς ἔοικεν, ὅ τε ἔρως καὶ ἡ φιλία καὶ ἡ ἐπιθυμία τυγχάνει οὖσα. This is the same doctrine as that which we read, expanded and cast into a myth with comic turn, in the speech of Aristophanes in the Symposion, pp. 191-192-193. ἕκαστος οὖν ἡμῶν ἔστιν ἀνθρώπου σύμβολον, ἄτε τετμημένος ὥσπερ αἱ ψῆτται ἐξ ἑνὸς δύο. ζητεῖ δὴ ἀεὶ τὸ αὐτοῦ ἕκαστος ξύμβολον (191 D) — δικαίως ἂν ὑμνοῖμεν Ἔρωτα, ὃς ἔν τε τῷ παρόντι πλεῖστα ἡμᾶς ὀνίνησιν εἰς τὸ οἰκεῖον ἄγων, &c. (193 D).