Part 180

“But is the just a friend to the unjust, or the temperate to the intemperate, or the good to the bad?”

“I does not appear to me to be so.”

“However,” said I, “if one thing is a friend to another by reason of contrariety, these things must also of necessity be friendly?”

“Of necessity.”

“Neither, therefore, is the like friendly to the like, nor the contrary to the contrary?”

“It appears not.”

“Further, let us consider this, whether it still more escapes our observation, that a friend is in reality none of these, but that what is neither good nor evil may sometimes become the friend of the good.”

“How mean you?” said he.

“By Jupiter,” said I, “I don’t know; for I am in reality myself dizzy with the perplexity of the argument. It appears, however, according to the ancient proverb, that the beautiful is friendly. 30. It certainly resembles something soft, smooth, and plump; on which account perhaps it slips away from us and escapes us, because it is a thing of this kind. For I say that the good is beautiful: do you not think so?”

“I do.”

“I say, therefore, prophetically, that that which is neither good nor evil is friendly to the beautiful and the good. But hear why I thus prophesy. There appear to me to be as it were three several classes, one good, a second evil, a third neither good nor evil. What think you?”

“It seems so to me also,” said he.

“Now that the good is friendly to the good, or the evil to the evil, or the good to the evil, our former argument does not allow us to say. It remains therefore, if any thing is friendly to any thing, that that which is neither good nor evil, must be friendly either to the good, or to that which is such as itself; for nothing surely can become friendly to the evil.”

“True.”

“Neither is like friendly to like, we just now said; did we not?”

“Yes.”

“Therefore to that which is neither good nor evil, that which resembles it will not be friendly?”

“It appears not.”

“The result then is, that that which is neither good nor evil alone becomes friendly to the good alone?”

“Necessarily so, as it seems.”

31. “Well then, my boys,” said I, “does what is now said lead us in the right direction? Surely if we will consider, a healthy body has no need of the medicinal art, or of any assistance; for it is sufficient for itself; so that no healthy person is a friend to a physician on account of health; is it not so?”

“No one.”

“But the sick man I think is, on account of disease?”

“How not?”

“But disease is an evil, and the medicinal art beneficial and good.”

“Yes.”

“But a body surely, so far as it is body, is neither good nor evil.”

“Just so.”