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of a sudden, as it does towards competitors in a contest; we come to feel
goodwill for them and to share in their wishes, but we would not do
anything with them; for, as we said, we feel goodwill suddenly and love
them only superficially.
Goodwill seems, then, to be a beginning of friendship, as the plea-
sure of the eye is the beginning of love. For no one loves if he has not
first been delighted by the form of the beloved, but he who delights in
the form of another does not, for all that, love him, but only does so
when he also longs for him when absent and craves for his presence; so
too it is not possible for people to be friends if they have not come to feel
goodwill for each other, but those who feel goodwill are not for all that
friends; for they only wish well to those for whom they feel goodwill,
and would not do anything with them nor take trouble for them. And so
one might by an extension of the term friendship say that goodwill is
inactive friendship, though when it is prolonged and reaches the point of
intimacy it becomes friendship not the friendship based on utility nor
that based on pleasure; for goodwill too does not arise on those terms.
The man who has received a benefit bestows goodwill in return for what
has been done to him, but in doing so is only doing what is just; while he
who wishes some one to prosper because he hopes for enrichment through
him seems to have goodwill not to him but rather to himself, just as a
man is not a friend to another if he cherishes him for the sake of some
use to be made of him. In general, goodwill arises on account of some
excellence and worth, when one man seems to another beautiful or brave
or something of the sort, as we pointed out in the case of competitors in
Nicomachean Ethics/153
a contest.
6
Unanimity also seems to be a friendly relation. For this reason it is not
identity of opinion; for that might occur even with people who do not
know each other; nor do we say that people who have the same views on
any and every subject are unanimous, e.g., those who agree about the
heavenly bodies (for unanimity about these is not a friendly relation),
but we do say that a city is unanimous when men have the same opinion
about what is to their interest, and choose the same actions, and do what
they have resolved in common. It is about things to be done, therefore,
that people are said to be unanimous, and, among these, about matters
of consequence and in which it is possible for both or all parties to get
what they want; e.g., a city is unanimous when all its citizens think that
the offices in it should be elective, or that they should form an alliance
with Sparta, or that Pittacus should be their ruler at a time when he
himself was also willing to rule. But when each of two people wishes
himself to have the thing in question, like the captains in the Phoenissae,
they are in a state of faction; for it is not unanimity when each of two
parties thinks of the same thing, whatever that may be, but only when
they think of the same thing in the same hands, e.g., when both the
common people and those of the better class wish the best men to rule;
for thus and thus alone do all get what they aim at. Unanimity seems,
then, to be political friendship, as indeed it is commonly said to be; for
it is concerned with things that are to our interest and have an influence
on our life.
Now such unanimity is found among good men; for they are unani-
mous both in themselves and with one another, being, so to say, of one
mind (for the wishes of such men are constant and not at the mercy of
opposing currents like a strait of the sea), and they wish for what is just
and what is advantageous, and these are the objects of their common
endeavour as well. But bad men cannot be unanimous except to a small
extent, any more than they can be friends, since they aim at getting more
than their share of advantages, while in labour and public service they
fall short of their share; and each man wishing for advantage to himself
criticizes his neighbour and stands in his way; for if people do not watch
it carefully the common weal is soon destroyed. The result is that they
are in a state of faction, putting compulsion on each other but unwilling
themselves to do what is just.
154/Aristotle
7
Benefactors are thought to love those they have benefited, more than
those who have been well treated love those that have treated them well,
and this is discussed as though it were paradoxical. Most people think it
is because the latter are in the position of debtors and the former of
creditors; and therefore as, in the case of loans, debtors wish their credi-
tors did not exist, while creditors actually take care of the safety of their
debtors, so it is thought that benefactors wish the objects of their action
to exist since they will then get their gratitude, while the beneficiaries
take no interest in making this return. Epicharmus would perhaps de-
clare that they say this because they  look at things on their bad side,
but it is quite like human nature; for most people are forgetful, and are
more anxious to be well treated than to treat others well. But the cause
would seem to be more deeply rooted in the nature of things; the case of
those who have lent money is not even analogous. For they have no
friendly feeling to their debtors, but only a wish that they may kept safe
with a view to what is to be got from them; while those who have done
a service to others feel friendship and love for those they have served
even if these are not of any use to them and never will be. This is what
happens with craftsmen too; every man loves his own handiwork better
than he would be loved by it if it came alive; and this happens perhaps
most of all with poets; for they have an excessive love for their own
poems, doting on them as if they were their children. This is what the
position of benefactors is like; for that which they have treated well is
their handiwork, and therefore they love this more than the handiwork
does its maker. The cause of this is that existence is to all men a thing to
be chosen and loved, and that we exist by virtue of activity (i.e., by
living and acting), and that the handiwork is in a sense, the producer in
activity; he loves his handiwork, therefore, because he loves existence.
And this is rooted in the nature of things; for what he is in potentiality,
his handiwork manifests in activity.
At the same time to the benefactor that is noble which depends on
his action, so that he delights in the object of his action, whereas to the
patient there is nothing noble in the agent, but at most something advan-
tageous, and this is less pleasant and lovable. What is pleasant is the
activity of the present, the hope of the future, the memory of the past; [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]