|
The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Lysis by Plato: pecuniary obligations; these more often mar than make a friendship. It is
most likely to be permanent when the two friends are equal and independent,
or when they are engaged together in some common work or have some public
interest in common. It exists among the bad or inferior sort of men almost
as much as among the good; the bad and good, and 'the neither bad nor
good,' are drawn together in a strange manner by personal attachment. The
essence of it is loyalty, without which it would cease to be friendship.
Another question 9) may be raised, whether friendship can safely exist
between young persons of different sexes, not connected by ties of
relationship, and without the thought of love or marriage; whether, again,
a wife or a husband should have any intimate friend, besides his or her
Lysis |
