Lysis

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? By all means. 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. So it appears, he said. Then the real friend is a friend for the sake of nothing else that is a friend? True. 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? I should say so. And further, it is because of the bad that the good is loved [*](Socrates here strangely confuses the cause (τὸ διά τι) with the object in view (τὸ ἕνεκά του), which he carefully distinguished in the case of medicine (219 A).); 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? Apparently so, 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. I should say not, he assented, to judge by our present argument.