The Good Book_ A Secular Bible - A. C. Grayling [38]
2. ‘If you take away emotion, what difference remains, I do not say between a man and a beast, but between a man and a stone or a log of wood?
3. ‘So I say again, the clear indication of virtue, to which a mind of like character is naturally attracted, is the beginning of friendship.
4. ‘When that is the case the rise of affection is a necessity.
5. ‘For what can be more irrational than to take delight in objects incapable of response,
6. ‘Such as office, fame, splendid buildings and personal decoration,
7. ‘And yet to take little or no delight in a sentient being endowed with virtue, who has the faculty of loving and returning love?
8. ‘For nothing gives more pleasure than a return of affection, and the mutual interchange of kind feeling and good offices.
9. ‘And if we add, as we may fairly do, that nothing so powerfully attracts one thing to itself as likeness does to friendship,
10. ‘It will at once be recognised that the good love the good, and attach them to themselves as though they were united by blood and nature.
11. ‘For nothing can be more eager for what is like itself than nature.
12. ‘So, my dear Fannius, we may look upon this as an established fact, that between good people there is, as if of necessity, a kindly feeling, which is the true source of friendship.
13. ‘Again, the believers in the “interest” theory appear to me to destroy the most attractive link in the chain of friendship.
14. ‘For it is not so much what one gets from a friendship that gives one pleasure, as the warmth of the friend’s feeling;
15. ‘And we only care for a friend’s service if it has been prompted by affection.
16. ‘And so far from its being true that lack of means is a motive for seeking friendship, it is usually those who possess sufficient means,
17. ‘And above all who possess virtue (which is a man’s best support; so the virtuous are least in need of others), who are most open-handed and beneficent.
18. ‘Indeed I am inclined to think that friends ought at times to be in want of something.
19. ‘For instance, what scope would my affections have had if Scipio had never wanted my advice or co-operation at home or abroad?
20. ‘It is not friendship, then, that follows material advantage, but material advantage follows friendship.’
Chapter 9
1. ‘Who would choose a life of the greatest wealth and abundance on condition of neither loving nor being loved by any creature?
2. ‘That is the sort of life tyrants endure. They can count on no fidelity, no affection, no security in the goodwill of anyone.
3. ‘For them all is suspicion and anxiety; for them there is no possibility of friendship.
4. ‘Who can love one whom he fears, or by whom he knows that he is feared?
5. ‘Yet such men often have a show of friendship offered them, but it is only a fair-weather show.
6. ‘If it ever happen that they fall, as it frequently does, they will at once understand how friendless they are.
7. ‘It often happens in the case of men of unusually great means that their very wealth forbids genuine friendships.
8. ‘For not only is fortune blind herself, but she generally makes those blind also who enjoy her favours.
9. ‘Now, can anything be more foolish than that men who have all the opportunities that wealth can bestow, should secure all else that money can buy: horses, servants, costly plate;
10. ‘But do not secure friends, who are, if I may use the expression, the most valuable and beautiful furniture of life?
11. ‘And yet, when the rich acquire the former, they know not who will enjoy them, nor for whom they may be taking all this trouble;
12. ‘For such things will all eventually belong to the strongest: while each man has a stable and inalienable ownership in his friendships.
13. ‘Scipio often said that no one ever said anything more opposed to the essence of friendship than this: “You should love your friend with the consciousness that you may one day hate him.”
14. ‘For how can a man be friends with another, if he thinks it possible that he may be his enemy?
15. ‘Why,