Love & Friendship
17. Number and Freedom in Friendship, then Aristotle's Ethics: What Is Friendship? The Three Lovables and Perfect Friendship
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[0:00] The next topic. he's got one little section here. the number of friendships, right? Aristotle will talk in the Ethics about the highest kind of friendship and how it tends to be only made for one person.

[0:18] You don't have a multitude of friends, right? Okay, you can have a multitude of friends in some lesser sense, right? But there is something. He gives some of the reasons we'll see why he thinks that highest kind of friendship is only between two people, right? And this is certainly the way Shakespeare presents Hamlet and Horatio, right? There is nobody that Hamlet has a friendship for like he has Horatio, and vice versa, or the friendship of Bassanio and the Merchant of Venice, Antonio, right?

[0:48] Okay, and they have other friends, Bassanio and and the Merchant of Venice, but it's not on the same level as the friendship of Bassanio and Antonio, the merchant of Venice. uh or in in Homer, there the friendship of Achilles and Patroclus, but you never have a friend like Patroclus. It's a one-to-one thing, right? Okay. Aristotle compares it even to sexual love, which, when it's intense, is for one person at least.

[1:17] I think it's because the intensity of this friendship, right? Okay. You see this sometimes even you know among the saints too intensity of this and friendship between them huh was it Basil and one of the Gregories huh yeah okay okay it's a little thing touching upon that topic

[1:43] on Saturday April 24th I dined with him at Mr Beauclerk's If you read the letters of Johnson they're always dining someplace but what's the best part of it is the conversation though you know

[1:56] Sir Joshua Reynolds Mr Jones afterwards Sir William. Mr. Langton, Mr. Stevens, Mr. Paradise, and Doctor Higgins. I mentioned that Mr. Wilkes had attacked Garrick. Now Garrick was the famous what? Actor, one of the most famous actors of the 18th century, huh? He was originally a pupil of Samuel Johnson, right? And then he came to London, became a famous actor, and so on. In my hometown, St. Paul, Minnesota, as a little kid growing up, they had a movie theater downtown.

[2:22] They had two ones that showed like double features and triple features. One was called the Garrick Theater, and the other was called the Lyceum. Oh. Now, Lyceum, of course, was the name of Aristotle's school. But you find the Lyceum a lot, on, you know, the French Lycées and so on. But this other theater was called the Garrick, so named after this famous actor, Garrick.

[2:47] Mr. Wilkes had attacked Garrick to me as a man who had no friends. And Johnson says, "I believe he is right, sir. He had friends, but no friend. " Now, original text that they had the Greek in there, but I gotta leave it out because of the printer. But you know, Philoi ou philos, a kind of a Greek proverb. He has friends, but no friend. What does that mean?

[3:15] Doesn't he have someone who's a real intimate, close friend, a bosom lover, as as bosom friend? One who's in- into the secrets, right? You know. Um, another way Scripture speaks of the word there, the Son of God being in the bosom of the Father, right? Huh? The intimacy of that friendship, huh? So a bosom friend is something you don't have, maybe more than one or two, or something like that, right?

[3:41] Potentially one. He had friends, but no friend. Garrick was so diffused he had no man to whom he wished to unbosom himself. He found people always ready to applaud him this famous actor. And that always for the same thing, so he saw life with great uniformity. I took upon me for once to fight with Goliath's weapons and play the sophist. Gay did not need a friend, as he got from everybody all that he wanted.

[4:10] What is a friend? One who supports you and comforts you. Others do not. Friendship, you know, serves as a cordial drop to make the nauseous draught of life go down. But if the draught be not nauseous, if all be sweet, there's no occasion for that drop. The gentleman said many men would not be content to live so. I hope I should not. They'd wish to have an intimate friend with whom they might compare minds and cherish private virtues.

[4:37] Okay. So you go through these famous examples in fiction, but also take some examples in your life. you know And the narrator, Bassanio and Antonio. Now, friendship, freedom, and familiar. If you look up the

[5:09] etymologically, the word "friend" is related to the word for freedom. And I think you see some of that meaning there, that a friend is someone you can be what? Free with. Free with, right? Let your hair down, as the expression goes, right? Cassius and Brutus are getting a little bit into friction there. Brutus, I do observe you now of late. I have not from your eyes a gentleness and show of love as I was wont to have.

[5:39] You bear too stubborn and too strange a hand of your friend that loves you right. Okay. But strange is the opposite thereof, familiar, right? Okay.

[5:52] And Brutus' son, he has not doubted a word, Lucilius. How he received you let me be resolved. With courtesy and with respect enough that should be with there, but not with such familiar instances, nor with such free and friendly conference as he hath used of old. These are the three words I have at the beginning of this topic: familiar and free and friendly, right? Thou hast described a hot friend cooling.

[6:22] Every note, Lucilius, when love begins to sicken and decay, it uses an enforced ceremony, right? There are no tricks in plain and simple faith. But hollow men, like horses hot at hand, make gallant show and promise of the mettle. but when they would endure the bloody spur, they fall their crests and like deceitful jades sink in the trial. See why a true friend is a friend indeed, right?

[6:51] Friend indeed. For Timon of Athens now. Now Timon of Athens, of course, is a man who's extremely generous, right? Open with his money, and so on. People take advantage of him, right?

[7:16] Most honoured Timon, it hath pleased the gods to remember my father's age and call him to long peace. He is gone happy and has left me rich. Then, as ingrateful virtue, I am bound to your free heart. I do return these talents doubled with thanks and service, from whose help I derive liberty. Oh, by no means, honest Ventidius! You mistake my love. I gave it freely ever, and as none can truly say he gives if he receives.

[7:45] If our betters play at that game, we must not dare to imitate them. Faults that are rich are fair. A noble spirit they all stand ceremonious. Looking at Timon, right, so generous. Nay, my lords, ceremony was but devised at first to set a glass on Saint Eustace. Hollow welcomes recanting goodness, sorry air to show them. But where there is true friendship, there needs none. Pray sit. More welcome are you to my fortunes than my fortunes to me.

[8:16] Of course, he's rooting himself financially, you know, like of course. When he does then, he turns to his friends, and they all put him off with some excuse. And he becomes a what? Misanthrope, Hater of mankind. He's a misanthrope. Actually, mentioned in Plutarch's, you know, lives, huh? So Shakespeare picked up on this. Molière has a play called *The Misanthrope*. Oh yeah. Timon says to Flavius and he's falling into financial difficulties.

[8:49] Why dost thou weep? Canst thou the conscience lack to think I shall lack friends? Of course? Flavius, the steward, realized these aren't two friends. Secure thy heart, if I would broach the vessels of my love and try the argument of hearts by borrowing. Men and men's fortunes could I frankly. Now, frankly means what? Freely. Right? A name like Benjamin Franklin. Now, actually, it means it's Freeman. You know, he's the governor of our state.

[9:16] His last name was Freeman, right? Well, Franklin means the same thing—a Freeman, Frank. Yeah, it's still some of that meaning today. You know, I'm going to be frank with you. I'm going to speak freely, right? Okay. Men and men's fortunes could I frankly. use it, all these friends, although he's misunderstood. As I can bid thee speak, assurance bless thy thoughts. And in some sort, these wants of mine are crowned that I account them blessings.

[9:45] For by these shall I try friends. You shall perceive, how you mistake my fortunes? I am wealthy in my friends. He's about to find out that he's not. He's very poor, his friends. But you know, you read the great work of Boethius, the Consolation of Philosophy, right? That's one of the consolations of misfortune, right? You know who your true friends are. So long as you're prosperous and fortunate, you're not too sure who is your friend, right?

[10:14] But when you fall into misfortune, you really know who your friends are. There's something so good that reason sees, right? Even in the in the misfortunes. And uh, the fortune's not too bad, it's more than compensated by the concern and the help that your friend gives you—not just because you need the help, but because you see that they love you. Okay.

[10:44] Now, friendship among unequals, that's something Aristotle would talk about. um, one way you divide friendship, is between equals, and then between what? Unequals, right? So the friendship of the father and the son would be kind of a prime example of friendship among equals, between the master and the servant, right? Or for Aristotle, even between the husband and the wife, okay? Or between the pope and his servant, or something.

[11:10] You know the pope and his... So, take the most controversial one, here. the duke is saying to Viola, "Let still the woman take an elder than herself. So wears she to him? So sways she level in her husband's heart. For boy, however, we do praise ourselves. Our fancies, meaning our hearts, our love, are more giddy and unfirm, more longing, wavering, sooner lost and worn than women's are.

[11:44] Viola, I think it well, my lord. Then let thy love be younger than thyself. Or thy affection cannot hold the bent. For women are as roses, whose fair flower, being once displayed, doth fall that very hour. And the other disguise you know And so they are alas! Alas that they are so, to die, even when they to perfection grow. As they all said, so that's the argument.

[12:15] that The husband should be older than the wife, right? As a rule, I mean, not the exception, but as a rule, that's true. My father was five years older than my mother. I'm five years older than my wife. So I follow this advice here That's what I preach, you know. I know when I first was in Worcester there, and I was a bachelor there, and I was staying in a big house there, you know, divided into you know little apartments, so to speak.

[12:49] And this one man was divorced, you know, and he was not a Catholic, so he's going to get married again, I think. But but he had married first a woman who was what older than himself, right? And he kind of saw this was a mistake, right? You know, kind of interesting. Sage was saying that too

[13:11] aggressive, but the next one he married was younger. But you know, it's kind of a comic, you know, a person idea of the old man marrying a rather young wife, you know, and not being able to satisfy her. You know, that's kind of the topic. Should we take a little break before we go back to Aristotle? No, no. A few friendly comments here. Back to Aristotle. We did the first reading, right, where Aristotle was giving about six reasons why we should take this up here.

[13:40] So let's look at reading two now, page two of your text here, where Aristotle is going to take up now the question, "What is friendship?" Right?

[13:53] And as I mentioned many times. You know, in the Greek word, you see right away a connection between friendship and love, right? In the word itself, philia is a Greek word for but

[14:06] friendship. That's a Greek word, philia, and in a way, our word Philadelphia, right? Refers to brotherly love, right? Adelphos is brother, and philia, right? To love, right? Okay, and this is where you get the the word like philosopher, right?

[14:42] He's a lover of wisdom, right? Okay, that's one of the many words in Greek. You've seen that book by C. S. Lewis called The Four Loves, but there he takes different Greek words like eros and agape that we have especially in the New Testament and so on. But here in the text of our study, you see right away that Philia is tied up with some kind of loving, right?

[15:03] Huh? It seems very pertinent to begin here. Perhaps these things will become clear if the lovable is known. For everything does not seem to be loved, but only something that is lovable, right?

[15:22] So, if there's love in friendship, there's got to be something lovable, okay? And so, you have to see what the lovable is before you can see what the love or the kind of love it is, and therefore the kind of friendship it is. Do you see that? Okay. We saw something like that in our study of the soul, right? Huh? See, you have to know what color is, let's say, and what sound is, and the difference between color and sound, the objects, to know the difference between sensing color and sensing sound, right?

[15:57] To know the difference between therefore seeing and hearing, right? And you have to know the difference between seeing and hearing to know the difference between the senses or the ability to see or the ability to hear, okay? So, the ability to see and the ability to hear are distinguished by seeing and hearing, and they're distinguished since they're both sensing by the object, color and sound, right? Well, it's a little bit like that here, right?

[16:24] Huh? That friendship involves habitual love, right? Huh? And so you have to distinguish friendship by the kind of love there is or the loving there is, and the loving is always for something that's lovable, and therefore you have to go down all the way down to lovable. Very thoughtful man, this guy, Aristotle. And this is the good meaning. Good in the full sense, like virtue, right? Like an example we had from what Hamlet to Horatio, right?

[16:59] Okay, give me that man that is not a passion slave, right? That's a good man, right? And this is the good or the pleasant, right? And the pleasant to the body or to the imagination, the senses, right? Or the what? Useful, right? Okay. You're lovable because you're good, or because you please me, or because you're useful to me, right? Okay.

[17:29] But the useful seems to be that to which some good or pleasure comes to be. So the good and the pleasant would be lovable more as what ends, the useful more as a what means, right? So the the useful friendship eventually will be seen to be the lowest of the friendships, right? Okay.

[17:56] Do they love the good or what is good for them? If you see something as good but not good for you, you don't tend to love it, do you? It's not for me, right? Okay. For these differs sometimes, huh? And likewise about the pleasant. It seems that each one loves what is good for himself, that the good is simply lovable, but to each what is good for each.

[18:26] But each loves not what is good for himself, always, but what appears so to him. This however makes no difference; the lovable will be apparent. So sometimes we love something that's truly good for us, and sometimes something that appears to be good for us, right? But even if it's truly good for us, we don't love it unless it appears to be good for us. But it might appear to be good for us without really being good.

[18:53] Okay. So there being then now the main point. There being then three things on account of which we love. We love a wine. Friendship is not spoken of in the love of inanimate things.

[19:13] So, is a bottle of wine a friend? You might speak that way sometimes, right? But do we speak of friendship between me and a bottle of wine? No. Or between the child and candy?

[19:29] You might have liked candy when you were a kid, but do you write candy as your friend? For there is no loving in return, right?

[19:43] I might like the candy, but the candy doesn't like me in return, right? For there is no loving in return or wishing good to that. It is perhaps laughable to say that I wish good to the wine, right? Or good to the candy. But if at all, one wishes it to keep well so that one might have it. But one's going to consume it, destroy it, right?

[20:07] Okay. You have to watch out when a man says, "to a woman, you look so good I could eat you." Maybe the right kind of love. But it is said that one ought to wish good things to a friend for his sake, right? Okay.

[20:30] And says those wishing good things thus could be called well wishers, benevolent, if the same does not come to be from the other. But friendship is an undergoing what? Goodwill in return, right?

[20:52] Now he's going to add another thing to the aspect of friendship that we mentioned before. For ought one to add not hidden, right? Okay.

[21:05] So, in order for you and me to be friends, I have to have goodwill towards you. I wish you good. But you have to wish me good in return. But is that even enough to say you have friendship yet? Or must you add that it's known to us that we have this goodwill towards each other? Okay. For many wish well to those they have not seen, thinking them to be good or useful.

[21:36] And one of these might undergo the same towards them, right? Such then would seem to wish well to each other, but how could one call friends those ignorant of how they are to each other? Okay.

[21:52] Now he's going to gather in the last sentence, here, everything together. the kind of definition of friends. It is necessary, therefore, that they have goodwill. That's the first thing, right?

[22:06] Towards each other, right? Wish good things, and then the third thing, knowingly, right? And on account of something lovable, either the good or the pleasant or useful, right? Okay. So Aristotle sees here in his first reading, or second reading, actually, Thomas. I divided by readings. They call lectures and Thomas, right? Lecture, me reading or lecture.

[22:41] Four things involved in what friendship, right? You see, So he's put those four things down, and you can put them together in one definition. There has to be goodwill for wishing well. Okay, that's one thing that you have to have for friendship, right? Okay. So I really wish well to the candy. No. I really wish well to the steak. No. Okay. I might want the steak to not be spoiled or the candy not, you know, its sweetness and all, right?

[23:21] Okay. If I'm really wishing good to myself, right? Okay. So this is one thing that's required, huh? Second is required is that this goodwill or wishing be what mutual, okay?

[23:42] And the third thing is that this mutual goodwill be known, right? Okay. And all of this because of something lovable, either the good or the pleasant or the useful, right? Okay. Aristotle was saying that, well, put in the form of a definition, he'd say that friendship is known mutual goodwill because of something lovable, right? Trying to put it more in the form of a definition, known mutual

[24:38] goodwill or wishing well because of something lovable. You need all four of those things, he's saying, right? To know what friendship is by definition.

[25:16] Now, a definition is a very precise thing. In one sense, it has the precision of spelling, right? Because in spelling, if you leave out a letter, you haven't spelled the word correctly, haven't you? And if you add a letter that doesn't belong there, right?

[25:40] You haven't spelled it correctly, right? And if you don't have the letters in the proper order, it's not spelled correctly, right? Although you could say that spelling is really kind of arbitrary, isn't it? Shakespeare didn't know how to spell his name like this, you know, in documents and and.

[26:05] But a definition, if you leave out an essential part, or you add a part that isn't essential, or you don't have the proper order, right? You kind of what fail to define it, right? Okay. So any of these parts that can be left out of the definition of friendship?

[26:25] No. Okay. Now, in this distinction of the lovable to those three, you've got one way that Aristotle is going to, the fundamental way, is going to divide friendships among equals, right? Hmm. Okay.

[26:56] I love you because you're good, right? You're not passion slave, or I love you because you you please me, right? Please my senses, or please my imagination, right? Maybe tell good jokes, right? You know, every time I meet you, you got a good joke. You see,

[27:15] or you're useful to me, right? Huh? Write a recommendation for me, right? huh? You're going to vote for me, right? Okay. You're gonna give money to my campaign, huh? Gonna give me a good deal on that car, huh?

[27:38] You know, I got my my regular car back in the garage, you know. But but some woman in the parish there, you know, saw me at that blue car, you know. And she, I was I expected somebody to say something, you know. Nobody said anything about it, you know. Because I go to usually go to Mass every morning, so they kind of know me, so. But I guess the woman came to my wife.

[27:56] You know, I was so surprised when I saw that car, Duane had. This is a bright blue, you know. If you saw it out there, I thought that was for your wife. Yeah, I was joking I got a price on this Take it out this time." See, if Enterprise would give me a price on this car. One of those Hot Wheels. I. I don't know what the reputation is.

[28:21] I didn't know they they call it PT Cruiser. I didn't even know. Oh yeah. Huh? I didn't even request it you see, but they. this other woman was waiting for her car, you know, from Enterprise and mine, and they they brought a Toyota and a and this PT Cruiser, and she'd been waiting half hour, you know, she's supposed to been waiting on before me. She said, "What do you want?"

[28:39] I said, "Well, you've been waiting half hour. Why'd you take one you want?" Okay. Now, at the beginning. of. The third reading, he's going to come back to those three kinds of lovable, right?

[29:03] And he's going to say that because these are three kinds of lovable, there's three kinds of love, and therefore three kinds of what? Friendship. It's all very logical. He's doing, right? And it's like what you learned in the study of the soul, right? That the powers of the soul have to be known by their acts, but they're acts by their objects. So if the objects are different, then the acts are different.

[29:28] And the acts are different, the ability to perform those acts are different, huh? But these differ in form. and that's referring back to the, you know, lovable, okay?

[29:44] The good, the pleasant, and the useful, and therefore the lovings, right. The act of love, right, are different, and therefore the friendships are right, okay? The friendship being more the habit, right, of loving in this way, right? Thus, he says, there are three forms of friendship, equal in number to the loved or the lovable, right? For according to each of these, there can be a return of love, huh?

[30:15] I wish to be useful to you, and you to me, and this back and forth, right? I remember once being in a guy who was working in the stock market there, you know, and back and forth, New York, this place, you know, and he's passing a little favor to a guy down there, you know, and he's saying that, but you know, he'll pass something back to me now, you know, you know, back and forth, he's stabbing a certain thing, and you realize, this guy wants to be useful to you, and you want to be useful to him, so there's a kind of a friendship there between you, right?

[30:47] Okay. But men loving each other wish good things to each other in that whereby they love, right? So in the U. S. Senate there, they have a club, you know, where some of the senators like to tell jokes, get together, right? And sometimes even you know, Republicans and Democrats will be there, right? Now, they had Dole and Gore on on some program the other day there, you know, and they were both making jokes, you know, because they're not running for office anymore, these two guys, and both making jokes about the previous the debates that they were in, right?

[31:24] And what they didn't do right, and so on, because either being asked about what's going to happen in a debate tonight or the argument tonight.

[31:35] And he says, those loving on account of the useful do not love each other in themselves, huh? Okay, I'm not loving you for what you are in yourself, right? But insofar as it comes to be something good to them from each other, right?

[31:58] Likewise, those on account of what pleasure, right? He takes an example of that. For they do not love the witty for the sort of person they are, but because they are pleasant to them, right? Huh? They tell these jokes that are pleasing to hear, huh?

[32:18] Now those loving on account of the useful love because of what is good for them, right? The one who's loving. Those on account of pleasure because of what is pleasant to them, and not as the one loved is themselves, but as they are useful or what agreeable, right? You're my friend so long as you're useful to me, or you're my friend so long as you please me, right?

[32:44] Okay. And there's one guy who could tell jokes for was it about half a year they say you know, and then he started playing his jokes. So now he ceases to be what pleasant, right? Huh? Okay.

[33:01] So Aristotle is going to make a distinction or point out a distinction between these friendships and the friendship based on the other person being good, right? And he says these friendships, the useful one or the pleasant one, are by accident, by happening, right? Okay.

[33:20] I'm loving you because you happen to be useful to me. Tomorrow, I may have other needs and other problems, and you're no longer useful to me, right? Okay. You see that in the in in the friendships, you know, among politicians, like that, right? Huh? Because very often when a man is nominated, say, for the presidency, it was customary, you know, to nominate for vice president someone who would balance the ticket, maybe either geographically or in some other way, right?

[33:51] Huh? So when Eisenhower was nominated. He was Eastern establishment, right? So they went to California. Got Nixon, who was a what? West Coast, right? When Kennedy was nominated, he got LBJ, right? Because Kennedy was strong in the North, but weak in the South, and LBJ was, you know, strong in the South. So that between these guys were really what friends in the highest sense, but they were useful to each other, right?

[34:20] Okay. But then another time you might not be any more useful to me after the election or something, right? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So.

[34:35] You are not my friend because what you are on yourself, but because you happen to be useful. Accident comes so the Greek word would be symbebekos accident and Latin here, more or less but but by happening you could say, huh? Okay.

[34:52] Now, for the one loved is not loved as he is, just as he is in himself, right? You notice how Hamlet's friendship over Horatio is based upon what he is in himself, huh? Give me that man that is not passion slave, and I'll wear him in my heart, in my heart of hearts, as I do thee, right? It's because of what Horatio is in himself that he wants him as his friend, and he wishes well to him, huh?

[35:21] Okay. It's not because Horatio is amusing to Hamlet, though he may be, but that's not the reason why he's his friend, right? Or because he's particularly useful to Hamlet, though he may be at the time he wants him to watch the king's reaction, right?

[35:37] For the one loved is not loved as he is, just as he is, but in so far as these provide a good, being useful, and those a what? Pleasure, right? Okay.

[35:52] Now, one consequence of these friendships being by happening, you might say, right? Such as these, then, are easily loosened when they do not remain the same. For if they are no longer pleasant or useful, they what cease to love?

[36:20] Where is it? Washington Irving has that little thing called the wife and the sketchbook. There, I think it is, where the man is quite well to do, and he marries a woman, right? He's really going to treat her well. Her life is going to be a fairy tale, he says. And then he has these financial reverses, and he's afraid to tell his wife, you know, his real situation.

[36:45] And Irving says to him, "You know, well, you can't wait forever to tell her, right? And it's better to hear about your condition from you than from some stranger, right? So. um yeah you've got to get the big, you know, mansion in the city, you know, and go out live in a little cottage in the countryside there, right? So his wife is out trying to straighten out the cottage, you know, and he's coming home now.

[37:13] And of course, he doesn't exactly what her reaction would it be to this, right? She has promised all these luxuries of life, you know, and so on. And all of a sudden, it's going to be very humble things. Of course, she's quite cheerful. She's playing her songs and so on, you know. Okay, and he's, you know, but she loved him for his own sake, right? It's a beautiful story, you know, beautiful story.

[37:38] But many, many other cases, huh? Okay, yeah. Some of these these funny. You ever seen some of these comic movies, you know, where the man is marrying for money, and the woman is doing the same thing, and he's pretending to have money he doesn't have, and she's pretending to be well, right? And then the two of them get married, right? And they suddenly discover no one has money.

[38:06] It's very funny. Yeah, I ever seen this in any one of the movies, you know, old movies. But it's okay now, of course you know, as our style, will see later on. The pleasant there it's especially found among the young, right? And I often refer to the remark that you know, mommy and daddy say, you know, when you a child, you know, go to play at somebody's house.

[38:33] Did you have a good time? Yeah, that's what your mama says, right? Yeah, yeah, I had a good time. Okay, but notice you like to play with that kid because he has the same what? He's into the same game as you are, right? Okay, but now when you lose interest in that game or in that occupation, you might want somebody else as your friend now, right? You see, so if you're crazy About baseball, you want somebody who will play baseball with you, right?

[38:58] If you're crazy about, you know, playing some stereo game or video game or something like that, you want someone else who, right, is into that, right? Huh? Okay. I was in high school. These guys used to go down to the St. Paul Chess Club, every Friday night every Saturday night, I didn't mind playing chess. I was, like, wow, what's that crazy about, right? See, so they go down, they play chess all night, yeah.

[39:24] So, if you enjoy chess, you gotta play with somebody, right? Well, then, right. But if you lose your interest in chess and get interest now in girls or something else, well, then you're no longer, you know, the friendship is broken up, right? Okay.

[39:43] So he says, such as these are easily loosened when they do not remain the same. For if they are no longer pleasant or useful, they cease to love, huh?

[39:54] Okay. Some days, as a college professor, you know the student wants you to write them other recommendation, right? Okay, so they're going to be rather pleasant to you, and so on, so on. But once they've got their position, they moved on, so on. Well, then you're no longer useful to them, right? Huh? Or maybe in a later position that they have in life, you're not in a position to recommend them because you're working them as a student, right?

[40:16] But you don't know them as they're working that job, so they need someone else to recommend them. So someone else now is going to be their their friend, right? Huh?

[40:25] But the useful does not remain for this other at other times, right? Of course, that's why they compare it to the friendship among nations, huh? You know, like some British statesmen said, you know, we have no permanent friends, but we have permanent interests. See, so at some time, England is the friend of what? France against Germany, right? But in an earlier period, you know, during the Napoleonic area, England was a friend of Germany or Austria.

[40:56] Austria against what? France, right? Huh? Okay. So the permanent interest was the balance of power there in Europe, et cetera, right? And sometimes, you know, that means you got to be the friend of Germany. Other times, you got to be the friend of France, right? So you're not the friend of France because it's France, or the friend of Germany because it's Germany. Well, there's something like that in the useful friendship, right?

[41:24] When that, an account of which they were friends, has ceased to be, the friendship is also what dissolved, right? As if the friendship were only in regard to that, huh? Okay. That's contrary to what Aristotle was talking about—that love that alters not when alteration comes, right? Because that's the highest kind of love, right, and the highest kind of friendship.

[41:50] Such a friendship seems to come about, especially in the old. For such, do not seek the pleasant, but the useful. So you have the old ladies; they call each other each day, right? Just to make sure the other one is what okay, right? And if they don't get an answer, you know, well then you know the inquiry, right? You know, 'cause maybe they'd be a doctor or something, right?

[42:12] Now, or I'm going to the store. Can I get you anything? No. And then you go to the store? Can I get you anything? Well, it's kind of useful, right? Okay.

[42:24] And to those also, sometimes even in the prime of life, or the young, who seek the what useful, right? Huh? But it's more characteristic of the old, huh? Okay.

[42:36] Now, as Aristotle would be pointing out the friendship. Useful friendship is more characteristic of the old. The friendship of pleasure of the what young, right? By those in the prime of life can have more of the higher friendship. Huh? Or they could have any one of these at any age, right? But I always quote the this kind of cynical remark of my politician friend Roy. He says, "A man first looks upon his wife as a mistress, and then as a friend, and last of all as a nurse."

[43:06] They have the three, three kinds of friendship. you know? Both pleasure, kind of a more true friendship, there in the middle, and then finally, you know, that's why they marry a woman younger than you, so you can take care of her. Because this is very common the old days, you know, where there was, some co-education, all these things, so that you tend to marry, you know, sometimes, you know, you know, ten years be difference, you know, between the husband and the wife, if not more, and so she was a nurse in old age.

[43:37] So Henry Clay there has always been nursed back to health by his wife, you know, and those things. For such, do not at all live together, especially the old. For sometimes they're not even pleasant, right? Nor do they have need of such association unless they are useful. For they are pleasant to the extent that they have hope of some good in some place with these that are strangers.

[44:13] Now, young, as he said at the top of page four, the friendship of the young seems to be an account of pleasure, right? Did you have a good time, right? Okay. That's really a sign that you are talking about were you pleased, right? Pleasing to be over playing with so and so. For these live by emotion, right? And they especially seek what is pleasant to them in the present.

[44:40] But as their age changes, so other things become pleasant to them, right? So one time you want to ride a bike, now you want to drive a car. One time you want to play this sport, now you want to play that game, right? Okay.

[44:57] Hence they become friends and cease to be quickly, right? For the friendship changes together with the pleasant, and the change of such pleasure is what swift, huh?

[45:11] Okay. And the young are amorous, huh? For the most of passionate love is by emotion and account of pleasure. Hence they love quickly and quickly cease, changing many times the same day. It's almost an exaggeration. But you see that in Romeo and Juliet, right? Romeo is in love with Rosalind, and he goes to the house of the Capulets, right, to see Rosalind, and then he sees Juliet.

[45:32] Now he's in love with Juliet, and he comes down to Friar Lawrence. He's, oh my God, he's, you know, you were mourning about Rosalind, now you are mourning about Juliet, so on.

[45:45] Okay. And these wish to remain together and to live together, for thus it comes to them according to friendship, right? People are falling in love with a different person every year, right? Huh?

[46:02] Now he contrasts with them the friendship that is not by accident or by happening, right? But the friendship of the good and alike in virtue is the perfect friendship. For these wish good things alike to each other, in so far as they are what good, right? But they are good in themselves.

[46:26] Those wishing good to their friends, an account of them are most of all friends, for they are thus through themselves and not by what happening.

[46:38] Hence the friendship of these remains as long as they are good and virtue is, something that is what stable, right? Huh? So notice the reason why Aristotle saying this is the perfect friendship. It's per se, you itself, huh? Okay, and not to happening.

[47:04] Now, if you look at Plato's and not Plato's, but Cicero's little thing on friendship, huh? There, it's only this friendship based on virtue that he calls friendship. He won't give the other the term, right? Aristotle will use the word friend for the ones because we do in daily life call them friends, right? You know, like Garrick had many friends. But

[47:37] I was reading about you know a thing about Stalin there this year, you know, one of these new biographies of him or things. The Red Czar, they called him. But he had many. He liked literary people, right? Hm. He must have found them pleasing, right? Like these things, huh? That was not a friendship based on virtue. What do you mean, huh? See, but he found this kind of conversation, discussion pleasing, right?

[48:03] And he read lots of fiction and things like that, certain. So a lot of these these high upper uppers and the Russian thing they like to have you know literate people around them because they're pleasing to hear these. Okay,

[48:19] but it's a friendship of what pleasure, right? Huh? And sometimes you know you see how how presidents you know I've had some people they like to play golf with and so on, right? See someone who's who's pleasure to play golf with. You know, guy was good conversationalist and so on. That's not friendship in the highest sense, is it?

[48:50] And each is good simply and to his friend, okay, for the. Good are both simply good, and they're also what useful to each other, and likewise pleasant. For the good are pleasant simply and to each other, right? Now, what Aristotle is saying here, this is another reason to say that this is the perfect friendship, right? Because if you're courageous, if I love you because you're courageous, because you're wise, because you're moderate, and the other virtues, right?

[49:20] You will be more useful to me than a fool, right? The old saying, you know, with friends like that, you don't need enemies, you know. You see. So, although I'm a friend of you not because you are useful to me, right? I'm a friend of you, and I chose you as a friend because I saw that you were courageous man, that you were a wise man, and a moderate man.

[49:43] You're eating and drinking and so on, right? Yet you're more useful to me in those ways, right? You can drive me if you're sober and not if you're drunk, right? And you're more useful to me in the battlefield if you're a courageous man than a coward, right? And you're more useful to me in life if you're wise and give me good advice and so on than if you're a fool, right?

[50:09] Okay. He says, also, you're really more pleasant to me, right? Because if I'm a wise man or a courageous man, I enjoy the company of wise and courageous men, right?

[50:26] But it's not only because you're like me, right? But you're like me in something that is naturally pleasing. Or if you're like me in being a coward, well, there's a basis of friendship there, the basis of a likeness, but the likeness is something that is not in itself pleasing, right? Okay. Or I like you because you're a fool like I am. Well, folly is not a likable quality in itself, right?

[50:58] So I have more reason now. If you're courageous and I'm courageous, to take delight in each other, right? And so, the highest kind of friendship has what the lower kinds have, but maybe two what higher thing, right? You're more truly pleasing, right? And more truly useful to me, right? Okay. And same with the man and the woman, there, right? If the woman is truly modest, right? That's a pleasing quality in a woman, right?

[51:26] See, Or if she's a prostitute, it's like this sort. Or if. She's got qualities that are not in themselves pleasing, right? So there's less reason for me to be pleased with the prostitute than with the modest young lady. Do you see the idea? Okay. So Aristotle is saying that this is another reason why this friendship is more perfect. It has everything that the lower ones have, but much that they don't have, right?

[52:03] Such a friendship, he says, is with reason stable, for it joins together in itself all things which ought to belong to friends. For all friendship is an account of the good or an account of pleasure; it is simply or to the one loving and by some likeness. But all the aforesaid belong to this as such, for in this they are like in the rest, and the good simply is also pleasant simply.

[52:29] But these are most of all lovable. and hence to love and friendship in these will be the greatest and the what the best. And then he takes one more sign here, and that is the rarity of these friendships, right? The best things are rare, and such are likely rare. The friendship of the virtuous, why? For such men are few. Okay, now this goes all the way back to the to the words of the seven wise men of Greece, right?

[53:03] Seven wise men of Greece are at the what? Um, into the seventh century B. C., right? Beginning of the sixth century, huh? And among them is Thales of Miletus I'm regarded as, the first philosopher. But they always had in the list of the seven wise men: Thales and Pittacus and Bias and Solon right

[53:30] But Pittacus said it's, "Difficult to be good." And Bias of Priene says, "Few are good, many are bad." Okay. And Christ is something like that, right? There, many are called, but few are chosen, right? Or broad is the road that leads to destruction, right? So such, he says, there, are likely rare, for such men are few, right? The mass of men prefer a life suitable to beasts, he says, in the first book. But You're not you're not the first wise man to say this, right?

[54:00] Heraclitus said to his son. For. Such men are few. Further, there is need of time. What? So we were saying, right? In being accustomed to each other, for according to the proverb, it is not possible to know each other before they have taken the required amount of salt together, right? That's fine I suppose they have to eat together and so on, right? Huh? Okay. That's expression, right?

[54:26] To put salt in the thing. One cannot receive or be friends before each appears lovable to each, and is what trusted, right? Now those quickly being friendly to each other wish to be friends, but are not if they are not worthy of love and know this, right? For the wish for friendship can come about quickly, but friendship cannot. Okay. So it's very rare that the best friendship is found, right?

[54:58] And it's probably you're lucky if you have somebody like Horatio that you can what be a friend of him. But even if you and Horatio are both virtuous, and there's few men that are virtuous, huh? It would still take what time, right, for you to become friends, so you could trust each other and know that you are worthy of this, right? Okay.

[55:23] That's what happens with the two gentlemen of Verona, right? I can read the great play. It's a very interesting play, A great play of Shakespeare. right? But Proteus at the end there asks Valentine for his forgiveness, right? And he forgives him, right? Okay. But they're young, right? And passionate, you know. Especially Proteus, huh? But Proteus is named from what? The god of who's always changing his shape, right?

[55:52] Okay. Proteus in Greek mythology and Homer appears in the Odyssey. There, right? Huh? He's always changing his shape. Grab on, hold on to him. False as water is an expression you find even in Shakespeare, right? But water is always changing its shape, right? If you pour this water into another container, another container, keep on changing its shape, right? That's where Proteus seems to be, right? He's in love with Julia.

[56:15] Now he's in love with Sylvia. You know, same day, right? He's just got through the tearful saying goodbye to Julia, and all of a sudden he's in love with Sylvia to the point of going to betray his friend Valentine and to the Duke, right? So he can move in and take his place with Sylvia. Kind of funny, huh? Used to see this when I was young. Used to see this young lady at church, you know, and daily mass.

[56:47] She's a kind of nice girl, you know. So I wonder who she is, and how can I get to know her, right? So I tell my best friend, you know, about her, saying, "And he's pretty clever, see, so he. . . " What he does, he he he he calls up the house, you know the telephone number of the house and where the house is, and he says, "I am doing the parish survey."

[57:09] He gets all the information. He passed it on to me, you know, but but he said, "I was tempted to ask about myself, purpose." I just had to clarify with the house, saying, "This is this is the parish survey." That's who they are, you know.

[57:37] So, mentioned that before. This, then, he says, the top of page of five is this. Then is perfect both according to time and according to the rest, and according to all these.

[57:54] We should stop there. Yes. Now, in the reading before, he's going to you know come back and compare the lesser friendships to what the highest friendship, right? And they are friendship only in so far as he has something what the higher one has, in so far as they resemble it, right? But Aristotle will nevertheless you know speak of these lesser friendships as friendships in some sense, as distinguished from Cicero's way of speaking of only the highest friendship as friendship.

[58:22] We shouldn't really call these useful friends friends. Well, in some imperfect and diminished sense, Aristotle says we'll call them friends, and in so far as they resemble in some distant way the highest kind, okay. So he's going to be talking about these three kinds of friendship again, right? But these are called friendships among what equals, right? As opposed to the friendships he'll talk on later on between unequal, like the friendship of the father and the son, right? The friendship of the master and the servant, or the husband and the wife, right?

[59:03] But notice how Aristotle in a way is anticipated by what the poet Homer, right? Because in the Iliad, he represents the friendship among equals between Patroclus and Achilles, right? These are men who have fought many battles together, right? So they they are alike in having this virtue of what courage, and courage is the virtue which is most known to us, huh? And you know how we have in this country we have the Medal of Honor, which some people call the Congressional Medal of Honor, but the soldiers just call it the Medal of Honor.

[59:45] But virtue is something honorable, right? But as I say, the Medal of Honor is given for courageous acts. I can get the Medal of Honor for one glorious afternoon on the battlefield, right? But I can be eating and drinking moderately all my life, and they won't give me a Medal of Honor. And I can be just all my life and pay what I owe people, you know, and so on.

[1:00:06] They won't give me a Medal of Honor, right? So in some way, the courage is is the virtue that most stands out. And the the Greek word for virtue, arete, and the Latin word for virtus, etymologically is translated into English by manhood, right? And manhood first has that sense most of all of courage, huh? So

[1:00:34] in some sense, the friendship of of Achilles and Patroclus is based on virtue, the virtue that's most known to the Greeks, huh? When Aristotle takes up the moral virtues in the third and fourth and fifth books, he begins with courage, right? And then he goes to moderation, ends up eventually with justice, right? So virtus has that sense of vir man manhood, huh? You can see Shakespeare often uses manhood in the sense of courage, and then sometimes he uses in the broader sense for even justice, right?

[1:01:11] For manhood means you know the disposition or habit that fits a man that a man should have, right? It's a broader sense. But then in the other great work that's come down to us from Homer, the Odyssey, there you have celebrated the the friendship of not only of Odysseus and his wife Penelope, but of Odysseus and his son in Telemachus, I guess, and the friendship of him and his what faithful servant there, the swineherd Eumaeus, huh?

[1:01:41] So in a sense, the the two greatest works that come down to us in Greek fiction, one is a celebration of friendship among equals, and the other is a celebration of friendship among what unequal, huh? And Aristotle will talk about those two kinds. So as Socrates says in one of the dialogues, the the poets are the fathers of wisdom for us, right? But you know, imperfect wisdom compared to that of the philosophers.

[1:02:08] But there is something there, right? And like you were talking in that conversation we're having there in between. I mean, Odysseus, you know, has a few affairs on the way home and so on. But you know, can't expect the poets to have too perfect an notion of these things. And and the philosophers, you know, criticize them, you know, for for

[1:02:31] attributing to the gods the kind of faults that men have, right? You know, adultery, he says, and robbery, and things of these sorts, right? And

[1:02:45] but now, as far as the first kinds of friendships, the friendship among equals, Aristotle will distinguish these three kinds, but only one of them is friendship in the fullest and the greatest sense, huh?

[1:02:59] That's why later on you get into the Summa Theologiae and you want to talk about charity and one of the first questions Thomas Aquinas will ask is whether caritas is a friendship, right? And of course, the objections are more understandable if you know the ethics here, because one objection will be, you know, well, but charity is supposed to love your enemies, right? But isn't friendship, you know, mutual?

[1:03:26] How can this be friendship, right? Or you're supposed to love even the sinner, right? But if charity is is is friendship, it should be the highest kind of friendship. And here now, you're loving the man who doesn't have virtue, the sinner, right? You see. And so you know, Thomas will have a reply to these objections, but you know how, in the Summa, he always objects to himself.

[1:03:49] Yeah. But you can see, you know, that these objections occur to someone who who knows human friendship. Right, and now he's going to consider the supernatural friendship. Okay.

[1:04:03] Mhm And of course, charity is primarily between God and man, right? And this is a friendship among unequals. In case you don't know, very much unequal, right? Huh? You know, but

[1:04:28] it's in some ways like the friendship of father and son, right? And you know the beautiful words there in Saint John, there, right? You know,

[1:04:45] right before he talks about you know eternal life, right? You know God as He is, and so on, but that we are called the sons of God, and we are His sons, you know. Okay. Um.

[1:05:01] That's very interesting, huh? And of course, sometimes Scripture compares it to what husband and wife, right? Huh? Okay. Um, and sometimes even to master and and servant, right? Huh. But all these these human friendships among unequals have a certain likeness to the friendship they're going to have with God, right? Huh. Okay, but you know, Christ will say, you know, I mean, Thomas will be starting this consideration of these things.

[1:05:30] He'll quote, "I no longer call you servants, but friends," right? Christ says. So, very interesting to study. I used to sometimes end up, the course, on friendship, love and friendship, you know, by talking a little bit about charity at the end, you know, but I give them, you know, the objections on one page, and then next day give them the answer. Because there tends to be, you know, to not wrestle with the problem and to look to look ahead right away to the solution to it.

[1:05:58] Huh? How can this be friendship? You know, if if it's even to sinners, and even to those who hate you, right? You know, but Thomas will make some distinctions that are quite relevant to that. So we'll we won't meet next week. I'm going to be down there in Kentucky again, there at Fort Knox, I think. Okay. Because you know, you still require the official notification of Congress, but that's just you know, usually it's done at the beginning of October.

[1:06:27] So supposed to be on October seventh, so next Thursday. But as I think, the father probably me after, but