for profit is not
true friendship, but accidental, as the Ethics demonstrate, so
philosophy for delight or profit is not true philosophy, but
accidental. Wherefore one ought not to call him a true philosopher who
for some pleasure or other may be a friend of Wisdom in some degree;
even as there are many who take delight in repeating songs and in
studying the same, and who delight in studying Rhetoric and Music, and
who avoid and abandon the other Sciences, which are all members of
Wisdom's body. One ought not to call him a true philosopher who is the
friend of Wisdom for the sake of profit; such as are the Lawyers,
Doctors, and almost all the Religious Men, who do not study for the
sake of knowledge, but to acquire money or dignity; and if any one
would give them that which they seek to acquire, they would not
continue to study. And as amongst the various kinds of friendship,
that which is for profit may be called the meanest friendship, so such
men as these have less share in the name of Philosopher than any other
people.

Wherefore as the friendship conceived through honest affection is true
and perfect and perpetual, so is that philosophy true and perfect
which is generated by upright desire for knowledge, without regard to
aught else, and by the goodness of the friendly soul; which is as much
as to say, by right appetite and right reason. And it is possible to
say here that as true friendship amongst men is, that each love each
entirely, so the true Philosopher loves each part of Wisdom, and
Wisdom each part of the Philosopher, so as to draw him wholly to
herself, and to allow no thought of his to stray away to other things.
Wherefore Wisdom herself says in the Proverbs of Solomon, "I love
those who love me." And as true friendship of the mind, considered in
itself alone, has for its subject the knowledge of good effects, and
for its form the desire for the same, even so Philosophy considered in
itself alone, apart from the Soul, has understanding for its subject,
and for its form an almost divine love to intellect.

And as the efficient cause of true friendship is Virtue, so the
efficient cause of Philosophy is Truth. And as the end of true
friendship is true affection, which proceeds from the intercourse
proper to Humanity, that is, according to the dictates of Reason, as
Aristotle seems to think in the ninth book of the Ethics, so the end
of Philosophy is that most excellent affection which suffers no
intermi