“Here arises the question to know whether one can keep up friendly relations with the vicious.[49] One cannot avoid meeting them; for one would have to quit the world, and we are not ourselves competent judges in respect to them. But when vice becomes a scandal—that is to say, a public example of contempt of the strict laws of duty, thus carrying with it opprobrium—then one should stop all relations one may have had heretofore with the guilty person; for the continuation of this relation would deprive virtue of honor, and make of it a merchandise for the use of whoever were rich enough to corrupt parasites through the pleasures of good living.”
64. Duties of friendship.—Besides the general duties of every kind which link us with all men, for the only reason that they are men, there are particular duties imposed on us toward those of our fellow-beings, to whom we are united by the bonds of friendship.
The duties of friendship have been admirably known and described by the ancients. We could not, therefore, treat this subject better here than by briefly recalling some few passages from Aristotle or Cicero.
According to Aristotle, there are three kinds of friendship: the friendship of pleasure, the friendship of interest, and the friendship of virtue. The latter is the only true one.
“There are three kinds of friendship.... The people who love each other from interested motives, for the use they are to each other, love each other, not for their own sakes, but only inasmuch as they get any good or profit from their mutual relations. It is the same with those who only love each other for pleasure’s sake. When one loves from motives of pleasure only, one really seeks nothing else but this same pleasure. Such friendships are only indirect and accidental. They are very easily broken, because these pretended friends do not long remain the same.
“Utility, interest, have nothing fixed; they vary from one moment to another. The motive which originated the friendship disappearing, the friendship disappears as rapidly with it.
“The perfect friendship is that of virtuous people, and who resemble each other in their virtue; for these wish each other well, inasmuch as they are good; and I add that they are good in themselves. Those who wish their friends well from such a noble motive are the friends par excellence. Hence it is that the friendship of such generous hearts lasts as long as they remain good and virtuous themselves; now virtue is a substantial and durable thing. Each of the two friends is in the first place good in himself, and he is, moreover, good to all his friends, for good people are useful to each other, and also mutually agreeable to each other. Such a friendship unites, then, all the conditions. There is nothing more lovely. It is quite natural, however, that such friendships are very rare, because there are very few people of such a disposition. It requires, moreover, time and habit. The proverb is true which says that people can hardly know each other well, ‘before having eaten together bushels of salt.’ In the same way persons cannot be friends before having shown themselves worthy of affection, before reciprocal confidence is established.” (Nicomachean Ethics, liv. viii., ch. vii.)
Friendship, according to Aristotle, consists in loving rather than in being loved.
“Friendship, besides, consists much rather in loving than in being loved. The proof of it is the pleasure mothers experience in lavishing their love.... To love is, then, the great virtue of friends; it is thus that the most unequal of people may be friends; their mutual esteem renders them equals.” (Ch. viii.)
Friendship gives rise to a number of delicate problems: they may be found discussed in great detail in Cicero’s Treatise on Friendship.