Neither the old nor the morose appear to be calculated for friendship, because the pleasurableness in them is small, and no one can spend his days in company with that which is positively painful or even not pleasurable, since to avoid the painful and aim at the pleasurable is one of the most obvious tendencies of human nature.
Those who get on with one another very fairly, but are not in habits of intimacy, are rather like people having kindly feelings towards one another, than friends. People cannot spend their time together unless they are mutually pleasurable and take pleasure in the same objects, a quality which is thought to appertain to the true friendship of companionship.
The greatest of external goods
A question is raised whether the happy man needs friends. It is said that they who are blessed and independent have no need of friends, for they already have all that is good, and so, being independent, want nothing further. The notion of a friend’s office is to be as it were a second self and procure for a man what he cannot get by himself, hence the saying: ‘When Fortune gives us good, what need we friends.’ On the other hand it looks absurd, while we are assigning to the happy man all other good things, not to give him friends, which after all are thought to be the greatest of external goods. It is nonsense to make our happy man a solitary, because no man would choose the possession of all goods in the world on the condition of solitariness, man being a social animal and formed by
The happy man needs friends
nature for living with others. The happy man has this qualification, since he has all those things which are good by nature, and it is obvious that the society of friends and good men must be preferable to that of strangers and ordinary people, therefore the happy man does need friends.
Are we to make our friends as numerous as possible? In respect of acquaintance, it is thought to have been well said, ‘Have thou not many acquaintances, yet be not without.’ In respect of friendship, may we not adopt the precept, and say, that a man should not be without friends, nor, again, have exceeding many friends? If they are more numerous than what will suffice for one’s life they become officious, and are hindrances in respect of living well.—We do not require them. Of those who are to be for pleasure, a few are sufficient.
Famous friendships are between two persons
Perhaps it is well not to endeavour to have very many friends, but so many as are enough for intimacy. It would seem not to be possible to be very much a friend to many at the same time, and for the same reason not to be in love with many objects at the same time. Love is a kind of excessive friendship, which implies but one object, and all strong emotions must be limited in number towards whom they are felt. Not many at a time become friends in the way of companionship; all the famous friendships of the kind are between two persons. They who have many friends, and meet everybody on footing of intimacy, seem to be friends really to no one except in the way of general society.
Are friends most needed in prosperity or in adversity? They are required, we know, in both states, because the unfortunate