Seite - 111 - in The Complete Plato

Then if you are friends, you must have natures which are congenial to one another? Certainly, they both said. And I say, my boys, that no one who loves or desires another would ever have loved or desired or affected him, if he had not been in some way congenial to him, either in his soul, or in his character, or in his manners, or in his form. Yes, yes, said Menexenus. But Lysis was silent. Then, I said, the conclusion is, that what is of a congenial nature must be loved. It follows, he said. Then the lover, who is true and no counterfeit, must of necessity be loved by his love. Lysis and Menexenus gave a faint assent to this; and Hippothales changed into all manner of colours with delight. Here, intending to revise the argument, I said: Can we point out any difference between the congenial and the like? For if that is possible, then I think, Lysis and Menexenus, there may be some sense in our argument about friendship. But if the congenial is only the like, how will you get rid of the other argument, of the uselessness of like to like in as far as they are like; for to say that what is useless is dear, would be absurd? Suppose, then, that we agree to distinguish between the congenial and the like—in the intoxication of argument, that may perhaps be allowed. Very true. And shall we further say that the good is congenial, and the evil uncongenial to every one? Or again that the evil is congenial to the evil, and the good to the good; and that which is neither good nor evil to that which is neither good nor evil? They agreed to the latter alternative. Then, my boys, we have again fallen into the old discarded error; for the unjust will be the friend of the unjust, and the bad of the bad, as well as the good of the good. That appears to be the result. But again, if we say that the congenial is the same as the good, in that case the good and he only will be the friend of the good. 111