merit obtains, at
the same time, the friendship of all who possess that excellent
character?" "The reason, I suppose, why you ask this question," answered
Socrates, "is because you frequently observe dissensions among those who
equally cherish honour, and would all of them rather die than commit a
base action; and you are surprised, that instead of living in friendship,
they disagree among themselves, and are sometimes more difficult to
reconcile than the vilest of all man." "This is a misfortune," added
Critobulus, "that arrives not among private men only; for dissensions,
nay, even wars, will happen sometimes, to break out in the best-governed
republics, where virtue is in the highest repute, and where vice is held
in the utmost contempt. Now, when I revolve these considerations in my
mind, I know not where to go in search of friends; for it is impossible,
we see, for the wicked to cultivate a true friendship among themselves.
Can there subsist a true and lasting friendship amongst the ungrateful,
the idle, the covetous, the treacherous, and the dissolute? No, for
persons of such a character will mutually expose themselves to hatred and
contempt; to hatred, because of the hurtful effects of their vices; to
contempt, on account of the deformity of them. Neither, on the other
hand, can we expect, as you have well observed, to find friendship
between a virtuous man and a person of the opposite character. For how
can they who commit crimes be in good amity with those that abhor them?
But what puzzles me most, my dear Socrates, is to see men of merit and
virtue harassing one another, and endeavouring, to the utmost of their
power, to crush and ruin their antagonists, when, in different interests,
both are contending for the most lucrative posts of the Republic. I am
quite at a loss to account for such a conduct on the principles of
friendship; for when I daily observe the noblest affections of the mind
rooted up by the sordid views of interest, I am in a great doubt whether
there is any real friendship and affection in the world." "My dear
friend," replied Socrates, "this matter is very intricate; for, if I
mistake not, Nature has placed in men the principles both of friendship
and dissension. Of friendship, because they have need of one another,
they have compassion of their miseries, they relieve one another in their
necessities, and they are grateful for the assistances which they lend
one another: of dissension