Discourses - Book II   

directed, and is overpowered at different times by different
appearances. But examine, not what other men examine, if they are born
of the same parents and brought up together, and under the same
pedagogue; but examine this only, wherein they place their interest,
whether in externals or in the will. If in externals, do not name them
friends, no more than name them trustworthy or constant, or brave or
free: do not name them even men, if you have any judgment. For that is
not a principle of human nature which makes them bite one another, and
abuse one another, and occupy deserted places or public places, as
if they were mountains, and in the courts of justice display the
acts of robbers; nor yet that which makes them intemperate and
adulterers and corrupters, nor that which makes them do whatever
else men do against one another through this one opinion only, that of
placing themselves and their interests in the things which are not
within the power of their will. But if you hear that in truth these
men think the good to be only there, where will is, and where there is
a right use of appearances, no longer trouble yourself whether they
are father or son, or brothers, or have associated a long time and are
companions, but when you have ascertained this only, confidently
declare that they are friends, as you declare that they are
faithful, that they are just. For where else is friendship than
where there is fidelity, and modesty, where there is a communion of
honest things and of nothing else?
"But," you may say, "such a one treated me with regard so long;
and did he not love me?" How do you know, slave, if he did not
regard you in the same way as he wipes his shoes with a sponge, or
as he takes care of his beast? How do you know, when you have ceased
to be useful as a vessel, he will not throw you away like a broken
platter? "But this woman is my wife, and we have lived together so
long." And how long did Eriphyle live with Amphiaraus, and was the
mother of children and of many? But a necklace came between them. "And
what is a necklace?" It is the opinion about such things. That was the
bestial principle, that was the thing which broke asunder the
friendship between husband and wife, that which did not allow the
woman to be a wife nor the mother to be a mother. And let every man
among you who has seriously resolved either to be a friend himself
or to have another for his friend, cut out these opinions, hate
them, drive them from his soul. And thus, first of all, he will not
reproach himself, he will not be at variance with himself, will not
change his mind, he will not torture himself. In the next place, to
another also, who is like himself, he will be altogether and
completely a friend. But he will bear with the man who is unlike
himself, he will be kind to him, gentle, ready to pardon on account of
his ignorance, on account of his being mistaken in things of the
greatest importance; but he will be harsh to no man, being well
convinced of Plato's doctrine that every mind is deprived of truth
unwillingly. If you cannot do this, yet you can do in all other
respects as friends do, drink together, and lodge together, and sail
together, and you may be born of the same parents; for snakes also
are: but neither will they be friends nor you, so long as you retain