Mistakes will sometimes happen. But see the consequence:—Many a man who is ignorant of human nature has friends who are bad friends, [E]and in that case he ought to do harm to them; and he has good enemies whom he ought to benefit; but, if so, we shall be saying the very opposite of that which we affirmed to be the meaning of Simonides.
Very true, he said: and I think that we had better correct an error into which we seem to have fallen in the use of the words ‘friend’ and ‘enemy.’
What was the error, Polemarchus? I asked.
We assumed that he is a friend who seems to be or who is thought good.
Correction of the definition.
To appearance we must add reality. He is a friend who ‘is’ as well as ‘seems’ good, And we should do good to our good friends and harm to our bad enemies. And how is the error to be corrected?
We should rather say that he is a friend who is, as well as 11 seems, good; [335]and that he who seems only, and is not good, only seems to be and is not a friend; and of an enemy the same may be said.
You would argue that the good are our friends and the bad our enemies?
Yes.
And instead of saying simply as we did at first, that it is just to do good to our friends and harm to our enemies, we should further say: It is just to do good to our friends when they are good and harm to our enemies when they are evil?
[B]Yes, that appears to me to be the truth.