The Good Book_ A Secular Bible - A. C. Grayling [37]
12. ‘A refusal, though perfectly right, is attacked by the asker as a violation of the laws of friendship.
13. ‘Now the people who have no scruples about the requests they make to their friends, thereby allow that they are ready to have no scruples about what they will do for their friends;
14. ‘And it is the recriminations of such people which commonly not only quench friendships, but give rise to lasting enmities.
15. ‘“In fact,” Cato used to say, “these fatalities overhang friendship in such numbers that it requires not only wisdom but good luck to escape them all.”
16. ‘With these premises, then, let us first, if you please Fannius, examine the question: how far ought personal feeling to go in friendship?
17. ‘I think that the plea of having acted in the interests of a friend is not a valid excuse for a wrong action.
18. ‘For, seeing that a belief in a person’s virtue is the original cause of friendship, friendship can hardly remain if virtue is abandoned.
19. ‘But if we decide it is right to grant our friends whatever they wish, and to ask them for whatever we wish,
20. ‘Perfect wisdom must be assumed on both sides if no mischief is to follow.
21. ‘But we cannot assume this perfect wisdom; for we are speaking only of such friends as are ordinarily met with,
22. ‘Whether we have actually seen them or have been told about them: people, that is to say, of everyday life.
23. ‘We may then lay down this rule of friendship: neither ask nor consent to do what is wrong.
24. ‘For the plea “for friendship’s sake” is a discreditable one, and not to be allowed.’
Chapter 7
1. ‘Let this, then, be laid down as the first law of friendship, that we should ask from friends, and do for friends, only what is good.
2. ‘But do not let us wait to be asked either: let there always be an eager readiness, and an absence of hesitation.
3. ‘Let us have the courage to give advice with candour. In friendship, let the influence of friends who give good advice be paramount.
4. ‘I offer you these rules, Fannius, because I believe that remarkable opinions are held by some, who say we should avoid close friendships, for fear that one person should have to endure the anxieties of several.
5. ‘Each person, they say, has enough and to spare on his own hands; it is too bad to be involved in the cares of other people.
6. ‘The wisest course is to hold the reins of friendship as loose as possible; you can then tighten or slacken them at your will.
7. ‘For the first condition of a happy life, they say, is freedom from care, which no one can enjoy if he has to worry for others as well as himself.
8. ‘Another opinion is still less generous: that friendships should be sought solely for the sake of the profit they give, not from motives of feeling and affection;
9. ‘And that therefore just in proportion as a man’s power and means of support are lowest, he is most eager to gain friendships.
10. ‘What ignoble philosophy! For let us examine these two doctrines.
11. ‘What is the value of this “freedom from care”? It might seem tempting at first sight, but in practice it has often to be put on one side.
12. ‘For there is no business and no course of action demanded from us by our honour which we can consistently avoid from a mere wish to escape anxiety.
13. ‘No, if we wish to avoid anxiety we must avoid virtue itself, which necessarily involves some anxious thoughts in abhorring qualities that are opposite to itself,
14. ‘As for example kindness for ill-nature, self-control for licentiousness, courage for cowardice.
15. ‘Thus you may notice that it is the just who are most pained by injustice,
16. ‘The brave who are most pained by cowardly actions,
17. ‘The temperate who are most pained by depravity.
18. ‘It is then characteristic of a rightly ordered mind to be pleased at what is good and grieved at the reverse.’
Chapter 8
1. ‘Seeing then that the wise are not exempt from heartache, why should we banish friendship from our lives, for