THE BLESSINGS OF FRIENDSHIP
Friendship a virtue
FRIENDSHIP, in the first place, is either itself a virtue, or connected with virtue; and next, it is a thing most necessary for life, since no one would choose to live without friends, though he should have all the other good things in the world: and, in fact, men who are rich or possessed of authority and influence, are thought to have special need of friends. For where is the use of such prosperity, if there be taken away the doing of kindnesses, of which friends are the most usual and most commendable objects? Or how can it be kept or preserved without friends, because the greater it is, so much the more insecure and hazardous: in poverty, moreover,
The bond of social communities
and all other adversities, men think friends to be their only refuge.
Furthermore, friendship helps the young to keep from error; the old, in respect of attention and such deficiencies in action as their weakness makes them liable to; and those who are in their prime, in respect of noble deeds; ‘they two together going,’ Homer says, because they are thus more able to devise plans, and carry them out.
Friendship seems to be the bond of social communities, and legislators seem to be more anxious to secure it than justice even. I mean, unanimity is somewhat like to friendship, and this they certainly aim at, and specially drive out faction as being inimical.
When people are in friendship, justice is not required; but, on the other