“Lysis, or Friendship” - Plato
‘God is ever drawing like towards like, and mak-That is true.
ing them acquainted.’
But the real meaning of the saying, as I imagine, I dare say that you have heard those words.
is, that the good are like one another, and friends Yes, he said; I have.
to one another; and that the bad, as is often said of And have you not also met with the treatises of them, are never at unity with one another or with philosophers who say that like must love like? they themselves; for they are passionate and restless, and are the people who argue and write about nature anything which is at variance and enmity with it-and the universe.
self is not likely to be in union or harmony with Very true, he replied.
any other thing. Do you not agree?
And are they right in saying this?
Yes, I do.
They may be.
Then, my friend, those who say that the like is Perhaps, I said, about half, or possibly, altogether, friendly to the like mean to intimate, if I rightly right, if their meaning were rightly apprehended by apprehend them, that the good only is the friend of us. For the more a bad man has to do with a bad the good, and of him only; but that the evil never man, and the more nearly he is brought into con-attains to any real friendship, either with good or tact with him, the more he will be likely to hate evil. Do you agree?
him, for he injures him; and injurer and injured can-He nodded assent.
not be friends. Is not that true?
Then now we know how to answer the question Yes, he said.
‘Who are friends?’ for the argument declares ‘That Then one half of the saying is untrue, if the wicked the good are friends.’
are like one another?
Yes, he said, that is true.