xenus a rest, so I turned to him and said, I think, Lysis, that
what you say is true, and that, if we had been right, we should never
have gone so far wrong; let us proceed no further in this direction (for
the road seems to be getting troublesome), but take the other path into
which we turned, and see what the poets have to say; for they are to us
in a manner the fathers and authors of wisdom, and they speak of friends
in no light or trivial manner, but God himself, as they say, makes
them and draws them to one another; and this they express, if I am not
mistaken, in the following words:--

'God is ever drawing like towards like, and making them acquainted.'

I dare say that you have heard those words.

Yes, he said; I have.

And have you not also met with the treatises of philosophers who say
that like must love like? they are the people who argue and write about
nature and the universe.

Very true, he replied.

And are they right in saying this?

They may be.

Perhaps, I said, about half, or possibly, altogether, right, if their
meaning were rightly apprehended by us. For the more a bad man has to do
with a bad man, and the more nearly he is brought into contact with him,
the more he will be likely to hate him, for he injures him; and injurer
and injured cannot be friends. Is not that true?

Yes, he said.

Then one half of the saying is untrue, if the wicked are like one
another?

That is true.

But the real meaning of the saying, as I imagine, is, that the good are
like one another, and friends to one another; and that the bad, as
is often said of them, are never at unity with one another or with
themselves; for they are passionate and restless, and anything which
is at variance and enmity with itself is not likely to be in union or
harmony with any other thing. Do you not agree?

Yes, I do.

Then, my friend, those who say that the like is friendly to the like
mean to intimate, if I rightly apprehend them, that the good only is the
friend of the good, and of him only; but that the evil never attains to
any real friendship, either with good or evil. Do you agree?

He nodded assent.

Then now we know how to answer the question 'Who are friends?' for the
argument declares 'That the good are friends.'

Yes, he said, that is true.

Yes, I replied; and yet I am not quite satisfied with this answer. By
heaven, and shall I tell you what I suspect? I will. Assuming that like,
inasmuch as he is like,