, because one and the same thing being
agreeable to many they contend to have it, and endeavour to prejudice and
thwart one another in their designs. Thus strife and anger beget war,
avarice stifles benevolence, envy produces hate. But friendship
overcoming all these difficulties, finds out the virtuous, and unites
them together. For, out of a motive of virtue they choose rather to live
quietly in a mean condition, than to gain the empire of the whole earth
by the calamities of war. When they are pinched with hunger or thirst,
they endure them with constancy, till they can relieve themselves without
being troublesome to any one. When at any time their desires for the
enjoyments of love grow violent and headstrong, then reason, or
self-government, lays hold on the reins, checks the impetuosity of the
passion, keeps it within due bounds, and will not allow them to
transgress the great rule of their duty. They enjoy what is lawfully
their own, and are so far from usurping the rights and properties of
others, that they even give them part of what they have. They agree
their differences in such a manner, that all are gainers, and no man has
reason to complain. They are never transported with anger so far as to
commit any action of which they may afterwards repent. Envy is a passion
they are ignorant of, because they live in a mutual communication of what
they possess, and consider what belongs to their friends as things in
their own possession. From hence you see that the virtuous do not only
not oppose, but that they aid one another in the employments of the
Republic; for they who seek for honours and great offices, only to have
an opportunity of enriching themselves, and exercising a cruel tyranny,
or to live an easy and effeminate life, are certainly very wicked and
unjust, nor can they ever hope to live in friendship with any man.

"But why should he who desires not any authority, but only the better to
defend himself from the wicked, or to assist his friends, or be
serviceable to his country; why should such a man, I say, not agree with
another, whose intentions are the same with his own? Is it because he
would be less capable to serve the Republic, if he had virtuous
associates in the administration of affairs? If, in the tournaments and
other games, the most strong were permitted to enter into a league
against the weaker, they would infallibly be victors in all the courses,
and win all the prizes; for which