Lysis (218-222)

For it is no longer

neither bad nor good, but bad; and we found that bad was no friend to good. And consequently we may say that those who are already wise no longer love wisdom, whether they be gods or men; nor again can those be lovers of wisdom who are in such ignorance as to be bad: for we know that a bad and stupid man is no lover of wisdom. And now there remain those who, while possessing this bad thing, ignorance, are not yet made ignorant or stupid, but are still aware of not knowing the things they do not know. It follows, then, that those who are as yet neither good nor bad are lovers of wisdom, while all who are bad, and all the good, are not: for, as we found in our previous discussion, neither is opposite friend to opposite, nor like to like. You remember, do you not? they both replied. So now, Lysis and Menexenus, I said, we can count on having discovered what is the friendly and what is not. For we say that, in the soul and the body and everywhere, just that which is neither bad nor good, but has the presence of bad, is thereby friend of the good. To this statement they said that they entirely agreed. And, beyond that, I was myself filled with delight, like a hunter, at the satisfaction of getting hold of what I was hunting; when somehow or other a most unaccountable suspicion came over me that the conclusion to which we had agreed was not true. So at once I exclaimed in vexation: Alack-a-day, Lysis and Menexenus! I fear our new-gotten riches are all a dream. said Menexenus. I am afraid, I replied, that in our search for friendship we have struck up with arguments that are no better than a set of braggarts. he asked. Just consider a moment, I said. When a man is a friend, is he friend to some one or not? he replied. Then is he so for the sake of nothing and because of nothing, or for the sake of something and because of something? Is it a friend—that thing for whose sake he is a friend to his friend—or is it neither friend nor foe? he said. Naturally enough, said I; but perhaps you will keep up if we try it another way, and I expect that I too will better understand what I am saying. The sick man, we said just now, is a friend to the doctor; is not that so? Then is it because of disease, for the sake of health, that he is a friend of the doctor? And disease is a bad thing? But what is health? I asked: a good thing, or a bad, or neither?

he said. And we were saying, I believe, that the body, being neither good nor bad, was a friend of medicine—that is, of a good thing—because of disease—that is, because of a bad thing; and it is for the sake of health that medicine has acquired this friendship, and health is a good thing. You agree? Is health a friend or not? And disease is a foe? So what is neither bad nor good is a friend to the good because of what is bad and a foe for the sake of what is good and a friend. Hence the friend is a friend of its friend for the sake of its friend and because of its foe. Very well, I said: since we have reached this point, my boys, let us take good heed not to be deceived. I pass over without remark the fact that the friend has become a friend to the friend, and thus the like becomes a friend to the like, which we said was impossible. There is, however, a further point which we must examine, if we are not to find our present argument a mere deception. Medicine, we say, is a friend for the sake of health. Then is health a friend also? And if it is a friend, it is so for the sake of something. And that something is a friend, if it is to conform to our previous agreement. Then will that something be, on its part also, a friend for the sake of a friend? Now are we not bound to weary ourselves with going on in this way, unless we can arrive at some first principle which will not keep leading us on from one friend to another, but will reach the one original friend, for whose sake all the other things can be said to be friends? So you see what I am afraid of—that all the other things, which we cited as friends for the sake of that one thing, may be deceiving us like so many phantoms of it, while that original thing may be the veritable friend. For suppose we view the matter thus: when a man highly values a thing, as in the common case of a father who prizes his son above all his possessions, will such a man, for the sake of placing his son before everything, value anything else highly at the same time? For instance, on learning that he had drunk some hemlock, would he value wine highly if he believed it would save his son’s life? he said. And the vessel too which contained the wine? Now does he make no distinction in value, at that moment, between a cup of earthenware and his own son, or between three pints of wine and his son?

Or may we perhaps state it thus: all such concern is not entertained for the actual things which are applied for the sake of something, but for that something for whose sake all the rest are applied?

I know that we often talk of setting great value on gold and silver: but surely we are no nearer the truth of the matter for that; what we rather value above everything is the thing—whatever it may prove to be—for whose sake gold and all the other commodities are applied. May we state it so? Then shall we not give the same account of a friend? In speaking of all the things that are friends to us for the sake of some other friend, we find ourselves uttering a mere phrase; whereas in reality friend appears to be simply and solely the thing in which all these so-called friendships terminate. he said. Then the real friend is a friend for the sake of nothing else that is a friend? So we have got rid of this, and it is not for the sake of some friendly thing that the friend is friendly. But now, is the good a friend? And further, it is because of the bad that the good is loved [*]; let me state the case as follows: there are three things of which we have just been speaking—good, bad, and what is neither good nor bad. If but two of these remained after evil had been cleared away, so that it had no contact with anything, whether body or soul or any of the other things that we count neither bad nor good in themselves, would the result be that good would be of no use to us, but would have become quite a useless thing? For if there were nothing left to harm us, we should feel no want of any assistance; and thus we should have to face the fact that it was because of the bad that we felt such a friendly affection for the good, since the good is a cure for the bad, while the bad is an ailment, and if there is no ailment there is no need for a cure. Is not this the nature of the good—to be loved because of the bad by us who are midway between the bad and the good, whereas separately and for its own sake it is of no use? he said. Then our friend, in which all the other things terminated—we called them friends for the sake of some other friend—has no resemblance to these. For they are described as friends for the sake of a friend: but the real friend appears to have quite the opposite character; for we found if to be a friend for the sake of a foe, and if the foe should be removed we have no friend, it seems, any more. he assented,

Tell me, I beg of you, I went on, if evil is abolished, will it be impossible any longer to feel hunger

or thirst or other such conditions? Or will hunger exist, so long as men and animals exist, but without being hurtful? Thirst, too, and all other desires—will these exist without being bad, because the bad will have been abolished? Or is this a ridiculous question—as to what will exist or not exist in such a case? For who can tell? Yet this, at all events, we do know—that, as things are now, it is possible for a man to feel hunger as a hurt, and also to be benefited by it. You agree? And so, when a man feels thirst or any other desire of the sort, he may have that desire sometimes with benefit, sometimes with harm, and sometimes with neither? Now if evil things are abolished, is there any reason why the things that are not evil should be abolished along with the evil? So that those desires which are neither good nor bad will exist even when the bad things are abolished. Now is it possible for a man, when he desires and loves, to have no friendly feeling towards that which he desires and loves? Thus certain things will continue to be friendly, it seems, when evil things are abolished. It cannot be that, if evil were the cause of a thing being friendly, one thing should be friendly to another when evil is abolished. For when a cause is abolished, that thing can no longer exist, I presume, which had this as its cause. Now we have agreed that the friend has a friendly feeling for something and because of something; and we supposed, just then, that it was because of evil that what was neither good nor bad loved the good. But now, it seems, we make out a different cause of loving and being loved. Can it really be then, as we were saying just now, that desire is the cause of friendship, and the desiring thing is a friend to what which it desires, and is so at any time of desiring; while our earlier statement about friends was all mere drivel, like a poem strung out for mere length? he said. But still, I went on, the desiring thing desires that in which it is deficient, does it not? And the deficient is a friend to that in which it is deficient? And it becomes deficient in that of which it suffers a deprivation. So it is one’s own belongings, [*] it seems, that are the objects of love and friendship and desire; so it appears, Menexenus and Lysis. They both agreed. Then if you two are friends to each other by some natural bond you belong to one another. they said.

And in a case where

one person desires another, my boys, or loves him, he would never be desiring or loving or befriending him, unless he somehow belonged to his beloved either in soul, or in some disposition, demeanor or cast of soul. said Menexenus; but Lysis was silent. Very well, said I: what belongs to us by nature has been shown to be something we needs must befriend. It seems so, he said. Then the genuine, not the pretended, lover must needs be befriended by his favorite. To this Lysis and Menexenus gave but a faint nod of assent; while Hippothales, in his delight, turned all manner of colors. So then, with the design of reviewing the argument, I proceeded: If there is any difference between what belongs and what is like, it seems to me, Lysis and Menexenus, that we might give some account of the meaning of friend. But if like and belonging are the same, it is not easy to get rid of our former statement, that the like is useless to the like in so far as they have likeness; and to admit that the useless is friendly would be a gross mistake. So how if we agree now, I said, since our argument has made us quite tipsy, to say that the belonging and the like are two different things? Then shall we maintain that the good itself belongs to every one, while the bad is alien? Or does the bad belong to the bad, the good to the good, and what is neither good nor bad to what is neither good nor bad? They agreed that the last three pairs belong together. So here again, boys, I said, we have dropped into the very statements regarding friendship which we rejected at first; for now the unjust will be as much a friend of the unjust, and the bad of the bad, as the good of the good. [*] he said. And what is more, if we say that the good and the belonging are the same, we cannot avoid making the good a friend only to the good. But this again, you know, is a view of which we thought we had disabused ourselves; you remember, do you not? So what more can we do with our argument? Obviously, I think, nothing. I can only ask you, accordingly, like the professional pleaders in the law courts, to perpend the whole of what has been said. If neither the loved nor the loving, nor the like nor the unlike, nor the good nor the belonging, nor all the rest that we have tried in turn—they are so many that I, for one, fail to remember any more—well, if none of these is a friend, I am at a loss for anything further to say.