220 l/-95
matters concerned with life. The base are enemies and do harm to each
other and are hostile, because they are in discord with each other.
They say that justice exists by nature and not by convention. Conse-
quent on this is [the belief] that the wise man participates in political
life, especially in the sort of governments which show some [moral]
progress towards becoming perfect governments. Again, it is congenial
to the virtuous to legislate and to educate men and again to compose
[books] which can help those who encounter their writings; and so are
condescending to marry and have children, both for his own sake and
for that of his fatherland; and he will endure both pain and death for
the sake of [his fatherland], if it is moderate. Juxtaposed to these traits
are base ones, courting the people and practicing sophistry and composing
books which are harmful to those who read them. These are traits which
would not occur in virtuous men.
llc. There are three senses of friendship. In one sense it is for the
sake of common benefit that people are said to be friends; this kind of
friendship is not that of good men, because for them there is no good
which is composed out of separate components. They say that friendship
in the second sense, a friendly attitude from one's neighbours, is one of
the external goods. They claim that a personal friendship, according to
which one is a friend of one's neighbours, is one of the goods in the soul.
lld. There is another sense in which all good things are common.
For they believe that anyone who benefits anyone, by that very fact,
receives equal benefit, but that no base man either benefits or is benefitted.
For benefitting is
virtue and being benefitted is to be changed in accordance with virtue.
They say that only the virtuous man is a household economist and a
good household economist, and again a money-maker. For household
economy is a condition which contemplates and practices what is advanta-
geous to a household; and economy is an arranging of expenditures and
tasks and a care for possessions and for the work that is done on the
farm. And money-making is experience of acquiring money by means of
the actions by which one should do so, and a condition which causes
one to behave 'in agreement' in the collection and preservation and
expenditure of money with the aim of [achieving] prosperity. And some
think that money-making is an intermediate [activity], others that it is
virtuous. And no base man is a good guardian of a household, nor can
he arrange it that a house is well run. And only the virtuous man is a
money-maker, since he knows the sources from which one is to get money
and when and how and up to what point [one should continue doing so].
They say that
of the same man to forgive> and to think that the man who has made a