Seite - 106 - in The Complete Plato

not as yet fancy that they know what they do not know: and therefore those who are the lovers of wisdom are as yet neither good nor bad. But the bad do not love wisdom any more than the good; for, as we have already seen, neither is unlike the friend of unlike, nor like of like. You remember that? Yes, they both said. And so, Lysis and Menexenus, we have discovered the nature of friendship — there can be no doubt of it: Friendship is the love which by reason of the presence of evil the neither good nor evil has of the good, either in the soul, or in the body, or anywhere. They both agreed and entirely assented, and for a moment I rejoiced and was satisfied like a huntsman just holding fast his prey. But then a most unaccountable suspicion came across me, and I felt that the conclusion was untrue. I was pained, and said, Alas! Lysis and Menexenus, I am afraid that we have been grasping at a shadow only. Why do you say so? said Menexenus. I am afraid, I said, that the argument about friendship is false: arguments, like men, are often pretenders. How do you mean? he asked. Well, I said; look at the matter in this way: a friend is the friend of some one; is he not? Certainly he is. And has he a motive and object in being a friend, or has he no motive and object? He has a motive and object. And is the object which makes him a friend, dear to him, or neither dear nor hateful to him? I do not quite follow you, he said. I do not wonder at that, I said. But perhaps, if I put the matter in another way, you will be able to follow me, and my own meaning will be clearer to myself. The sick man, as I was just now saying, is the friend of the physician —is he not? Yes. And he is the friend of the physician because of disease, and for the sake of health? Yes. 106