y often occurred to me when thinking about
friendship, that the chief point to be considered was this: is it
weakness and want of means that make friendship desired? I mean, is its
object an interchange of good offices, so that each may give that in
which he is strong, and receive that in which he is weak? Or is it not
rather true that, although this is an advantage naturally belonging to
friendship, yet its original cause is quite other, prior in time, more
noble in character, and springing more directly from our nature itself?
The Latin word for friendship--_amicitia_--is derived from that for
love--_amor_; and love is certainly the prime mover in contracting
mutual affection. For as to material advantages, it often happens
that those are obtained even by men who are courted by a mere show
of friendship and treated with respect from interested motives. But
friendship by its nature admits of no feigning, no pretence: as far
as it goes it is both genuine and spontaneous. Therefore I gather that
friendship springs from a natural impulse rather than a wish for help:
from an inclination of the heart, combined with a certain instinctive
feeling of love, rather than from a deliberate calculation of the
material advantage it was likely to confer. The strength of this
feeling you may notice in certain animals. They show such love to their
offspring for a certain period, and are so beloved by them, that they
clearly have a share in this natural, instinctive affection. But of
course it is more evident in the case of man: first, in the natural
affection between children and their parents, an affection which only
shocking wickedness can sunder; and next, when the passion of love has
attained to a like strength--on our finding, that is, some one person
with whose character and nature we are in full sympathy, because we
think that we perceive in him what I may call the beacon-light of
virtue. For nothing inspires love, nothing conciliates affection, like
virtue. Why, in a certain sense we may be said to feel affection even
for men we have never seen, owing to their honesty and virtue. Who, for
instance, fails to dwell on the memory of Gaius Fabricius and Manius
Curius with some affection and warmth of feeling, though he has never
seen them? Or who but loathes Tarquinius Superbus, Spurius Cassius,
Spurius Maelius? We have fought for empire in Italy with two great
generals, Pyrrhus and Hannibal. For the former, owing to his probity, we