Chapter 1

Term 1

Action

An action, that is, a virtuous action, is not done for the sake of another thing, but for its own good.

Joy or sadness follows every action.

Term 2

The Hot-tempered

The hot-tempered tend excessively toward anger and become angry at every nuisance.

Term 3

The Uncultivated Man

**The uncultivated man **is entirely inept at witty speaking, he contributes nothing and becomes sad in all circumstances.

Term 4

The Gambler

The gambler, the grave-robber, and the thief are numbered among the illiberal.

Term 5

Complaint

It is reasonable that complaints and grievances are made soley or mostly in friendships of utility.

They are made most when an exchange is not made according to the same standard, and so the friendship is ended.

Complaints are made differently in friendships which are in accord with excellence.

In frienships of pleasure, complaints happen most often when the frienship is not based on the same thing for both persons.

There is no complaint in a friendship of virtue, because it is of one accord.

Someone complains if he loves his friend for the sake of utility but pretends to love him for the sake of true virtue.

Term 6

The Man who Accepts a Favour

The man who accepts something from one who is not his friend and does not owe him has erred from the outset.

The man who accepts a favour should return it if he is able. If he is not, then he who did the favour not deem worth what he receives from him.

The man who accepts should set aside and portion out a return when something is given outside an agreement. The laws see this as a more just arrangement.

Term 7

Giving Loans

It is not always necessary to loan to one who loans to you. As when someone, seeking only gain, were to loan to me, who am virtuous, if I believe him to be ill-willed, I am not equally obliged to loan.

When those who loan do not wish for the good to those whom they loan but only seek gain, but the generous love even if they do not benefit.

Term 8

Doing

For a man not to do evil deeds, he must be well raised and habituated, and strive zealously live virtuously. He will do this this will be so if he live according to dictate of his intellect, which has a restraining force.

Term 9

Affirmation

Affirmation and negation are in the intellect, as flight and pursuit are in the appetitive faculty.

Term 10

Agathon

Agathon said: One thing alone is outside God's power: to make undone those things which are certainly done.

The same said: art loves fortune and fortune, art.

Term 11

The Sullen

The sullen are those who hold hold on to anger for a long time and only rest once they receive recompense, for vengence is what settles their impulse of anger.

Term 12

Alcmaeon

He was compelled to kill his mother.

Term 13

Vulgarity

It is an excess with regard to magnificence.

Term 14

Friendship

Friendship is a kind of virtue or it accompanies virtue.

It is most necessary for life since no one would chose to live without friends.

Those who are very wealthy and possess power are in most need of it.

It is necessary with respect to life in misfortune, because in need and in other misfortunes, a man takes refuge in his friends.

It is necessary for the young and the old, because the young are prevented from erring by their friends and the aged are cared for by it.

It leads men to act and to think.

It seems to occur innately in us, not only among men, but also among birds and in a great number animals.

It seems to exist naturally in men, since all men appear familiar and friendly toward others, as when a man stops someone, known or unknown to him alike, from going astray.

That is is necessary for life because states and lawgivers strive especially to sew concord.

It is an honest good, since we praise men who love their friends.

Some men think good men and friends the same.

There is a kind of likeness in friends and men are friends insofar as they are like-minded.

For some, friendship consists in opposition, since all potters quarrel with one another.

The cause of friendship is opposition because opposites attract such as dry earth and wet rain.

Friendship, according to Empedocles, comes from like things loving and seeking after the like.

The love of inanimate things is not called friendship because inanmiate things cannot make a return to friendship.

Term 15

Friendship of utlity and pleasure

The friendship of utility and of pleasure are friendship in an accidental sense, not because the parties share love but rather because they share utility or pleasure.

The friendship of utility is found in the young and the aged. For the aged seek after the useful, not the pleasurable; the young do because of habit.

Such friendships are easily dissoluble, since whenever the cause of their friendship ceases to be, so does the friendship itself.

The friendship of youths seems to be one for pleasure, since young people live by pleasure and seek most after what is pleasurable.

Among youths, a friendhship of pleasure is easily dissolved, since as they age, their tastes change.

In friendships of utility or pleasure, one can have many friends, since there are many that can be of use or pleasure.

A friendship of pleasure is better than one of utility, since there is greater equality in it, the friendship between youths is like this.

Term 16

Concerning friendship in business

Friendship out of utility concerns business affairs.

The friendship of an honourable man persists as long as its causes were good, virtuous things.

It is long-lasting because it endures all, since it includes what is expected of friends.

Friendship is the greatest and best thing.

It is rare, since it only is had between virtous men, who are few, and it takes time and getting used to.

Friendship of pleasure has some likeness to the friendship of an honourable man, since pleasures are indeed good to him, and even to the friendship of utlity, since men in this kind of friendship are good to one another.

Other kinds of friendship (apart from true friendship) last longest when friends give the same thing to one another.

Many remain in a friendship of pleasure because they become accustomed to each others ways of being, they being alike.

In friendships of utility and of pleasure it can happen that evil men be friends to one another, and even a virtuous man with evil men, and men who are neither good nor bad can be friends of anyone.

Only the friendship of good men is true friendship that is unchangable, since such men who are true friends do not easily believe bad news about the character of one long tried and true to him.

There are many kinds of friendship, the principle kind is friendship between good men, which is in accord with good things qua good, since it it has its foundation on the good, that is, what is virtuous. Other kinds, however, have their basis in a good.

Frienships of utility and pleasure do not often coincide, since these friendships are not joined together because of themselves, but incidentally.

Friendship does not dissolve merely out of a long distance, but is impeded rather by an action. But if such a long distance makes one absent, it also brings forgetfulness of a friend, just as the proverb says: many a friendship has lack of ...ended.

Friendship is called an equality, and this is most present between good men.

One cannot be friends in a perfect way with many, just as one cannot love many at the same time. Love is like an abundance of feeling, which can only be directed toward an individual.

All of the kinds of friendship mentioned consist in an equality, since the same is done by each and willed by each toward the other, or exchange one thing for another, such as pleasure for utility, but such men are lesser friends and their friendships last a shorter time.

Other kinds of friendship seem to be friendships from their similarity to true friendship which accords with virtue (which includes utility and pleasure). So too, they seem not to be friendships because of their dissimilarity, since the former quickly pass, whereas the latter endure, and they differ from the former in other respects.

Friendships mentioned that are unequal differ even from one another. For example, the friendship of the father to his son, or of a senior to his junior, and a ruler to his subject; these differ from one another. He proves this in two ways.

Friendship between a father and his children is long-lasting when the sons render what is due to their father, and likewise the parents to their children.

In unequal friendships, there must be a proportionate love, so that if the superior party is greater, he is more loved than he loves, then there will be a kind of equality according to merit/excellence.

Friendship does not last nor does one esteem the other if there is a great difference between them with respect to virtue, vice, or wealth. This is manifest in the case of the gods or kings, these abound in all goods, and in the case of wise men to foolishmen, who are not worthy of anything. However in these matters it is not certain how great the difference may or may not be for the friendship to end.

Friendship has more to do with loving than being loved. This is seen by the fact that mothers who have such eager love for their children do not mind if their love is not returned by their small children out of ignorance. Nevertheless they still make provision to love them and bring them up.

Friendship is a kind of equality and likeness.

Friendship of utility and pleasure remain longer than the friendship of a bad man, as long as they provide pleasures and advantages.

Friendship between contraries seems to most often be one of utility, such as the poor man to the rich man, and the unlearned man to the wise man, since whoever wishes for some gain loves the man who has what he is lacking.

Friendship and justice seem lie in the same thing and concern the same thing, that is, in mutual exchange (reciprocity).

Friendship exists as much as things are shared, and so fellow soldiers and sailors are called friends.

Some kinds of friendship are greater, others lesser.

Friendship and justice differ in various relationships since the association for the parents toward their children is not the same as for brothers and comrades... and since the same relationship does not exist between parents and their children, as to their siblings or other relations.

Friendship and justice grow from the same things, since the greater the association, the greater justice and friendship. For example, it is more difficult stealing the wealth of a comrade than of an unknown citizen, more difficult to strike one's father than someone else.

Friendship is in any kind of government as long as what is just is preserved in it, as in the case of a kingdom when a king shows favour to his subjects.

The king's friendship and the father's friendship are imbalanced, and therefore in these kinds of friendships, what is just between friends is not equal, but one should be afforded what is due to him by merit/excellence.

The friendship of a man with his wife, if it is like friendship in an aristocracy or in political affairs, is such that each one receives according to his virtue.

The friendship of brothers and comrades, and of everyone who shares a common pursuit and way of life are similar kinds of friendship. They follow the pattern of a timocracy, where citizens wish to be as equal and just, and each man has his own share in ruling.

In regimes where the ruler and the ruled do not share anything, there is neither friendship nor justice, but their relationship is like that of an artisan to his tools.

Friendship may not be toward inanimate things, neither justice, neither toward a slave qua slave.

Friendship toward a slave is toward him qua man and not toward him qua slave.

there can exist friendship, as there can be justice, between all who can share in a common law or agreement.

All friendship entails exchange.

Friendship of kin seems to be of many kinds, but these all depend on paternal friendship.

Common circumstance and common age make many friends, and this kind of friendship is like the friendship of brothers.

The friendship of comrades is like that of brothers.

The relation of nephews and kin is like that of friends, and they are close in a greater or lesser degree in the measure that they are related to the head of the house, that is, the main branch of the family.

The friendship of sons to their parents is one of unequal good, as the friendships of men to gods is like it.

The friendship of parents to their sons has pleasure and utility in it, more than the friendship of strangers, since they share more in a common life.

Between man and wife, friendship seems to exist naturally.

The friendship between man and wife seems to be one of utility and of pleasure, and, if they are virtuous it will be one of virtue, since they will take delight in one another.

Kinds of friendship differ in their mode of common life, what is just is not the same for each.

Each of the three types of friendship may be further divided into equal and superior friendships. Equal friendship when the friend is equal the other and unequal friendship is when the one friend is greater than the other. When friends are equal, they must make an equal (secundum rem) return to one another as friends. But in unequal friendships, this exchange must be made proportionally.

Complaints and quarrels only belong to friendships of utility.

Complaints are not found in a friendship of virtue, since, if friends are virtuous, they will be disposed to act well. For this is the mark of virtue and friendship.

Friendship for pleasure is not marked by continuous complaint. Both parties have time what they desire in enjoying each other's company, and a man will seem ridiculous if he complains of another since he need not keep the other's company.

Friendship for utility is prone to complaint, since in such a friendship, when one uses the other he is always trying to attain something he supposes he lacks. One complains that he receives less than he is owed or something he lacks, but the other complains he does not have enough to satisfy what the other is missing.

Friendship of utility may be moral or legal. Friendship of legal utility is a commercial one, some concern immediate hand-offs of goods, some an exchange with time allowed in between. This kind is more liberal and is accompanied with a friendly attitude.

Friendship of moral utility does not concern agreements, but involves a man lending to anyone as if to a friend, assuming repayment of the same or something greater. He does not give liberally but as if it were a loan.

Complaints can arise in a friendship of moral utility since there is not a prior agreement. When one friend does not make a return in line with what the other was expecting, he complains against him and ends the friendship.

In a friendship for utility, its measure is the utility of the receiver.

Friendships according to virtue do no lend themselves to complaints, however repayments are measured by the free choice of the one acting, this is the principal with virtues.

Unequal friendships produce different kinds of complaints.

Friendship ends when either of the friends thinks he is worthy of receiving more.

Friendship requires that a man make what return he can, even when an adequate return is not within his power.

In every kind of friendship that involves some inequality of persons, there is a proportionality. This means that each party makes a return proportional to his state, and this makes the friendship equal. Just as in political friendship, a craftsman receives pay according to the worth of his work.

In a friendship of lovers, sometimes one party accuses the other of not returning his overabundant love. This may be because there is nothing lovable about him.

Friendship founded on habits of character is self-sufficicent, so complaints do not arise.

Concerning friendship in which it seems one pretends to love and actually loves for pleasure.

Most differences arise in friendships when friends think they are in one kind of friendship but they are really in another kind.

Friendship should be broken off immediately with those whose ways are incurable. Those capable of being helped on the right path, however, should be given aid, but more in the way of moral guidance than financial help, since this is more noble and essential to friendship.

Whether one should maintain friendship if one friend remains the same in virtue while the other grows to be much greater in virtue, and he says that this does not occur.

Friendship cannot remain between friends when one remains the same in virtue while the becomes more excellent in virtue. He gives proof of this with friendships made in childhood, when one grows up in virtue and the other remains busied with childish things. These cannot be friends since they do not delight or grow sad in the same things.

One should not make many friends of utility, since to aid and repay many is laborious and one cannot look after the affairs of one's own life while one is assisting many others.

One should even avoid making many friends of pleasure, since a few friends bring enough pleasure, and if we have too many, we cannot delight in the familiarity they bring.

The friendship of a virtuous man can be with as many as he can live with, but it is evident to anyone that it is not possible to live with many and divide oneself up to many. He proves this in three ways.

Close friendship of those who share in their ways of life is held with a few friends.

Political friendship entails having many friends, since a man can live pleasantly with all citizens, and not merely disingenuously, but as a genuine man.

True friendship, which is for virtue and exists for the sake of the friends themselves does not occur with many, since one seldom finds such men.

Friendship of bad men is evil, since it leads to what is evil. As long as they are not grounded in virtue, they share in evil things. They are like each other and even become more evil. The friendship, however, of good men becomes greater, while the good grows in either party from good conversations and actions and they align themselves with eachother.

Term 17

Friendly Things

Those who are quick to do friendly deeds toward each other show they intend friendship, this is a speedy thing, but it is not yet a friendship if both parties unless they are lovable toward one another and aware of it.

Friendly things toward friends are borne out of and determined by a man's disposition toward himself.

Term 18

What is Worthy of Love

Not everything should be loved, but only the good.

What is worthy of love and of choice is the good absolutely; what is worthy of love is good and pleasurable for everyone. The good man is good because of these two.
without qualification.

Term 19

Love

Love is like a passion, whereas friendship is like a habit of character, which involves a mutual exchange and choice. Choice out of a habit, since one wills the good of the other for his own sake. However love toward inanimate things is necessarily without mutual exchange and choice.

Term 20

Friendship

Friendhsip is a mean in all life's acts. One who goes too far in this regard for no other purpose is called obsequious, but one who acts only for his own utility is called a flatterer. The man who lacks too much in this unpleasant in all things, he is contentious and quarrelsome.

Term 21

The Friend

What our friends do is in some measure done by us, since the working principle is found in us.

A friend wishes the good of his friend for his own sake. It ridiculous for him to wish the good toward, say, wine, but he does wish it to keep from spoiling, so he does incidentally wish its good, so that he may later drink it.

Friends wish to pass the day together and to live with one another.

Those who are friends for utility are less so friends than those for pleasures, and their friendship remains for a shorter time. This kind of friendship ends when its advantage does.

Men call one another friends for utility, just as do cities with one another for the sack of some gain in making alliances.

Men who love eachother for pleasure are also called friends, just as children are called friends.

Evil men may be friends for utility or pleasure, being like one another in this way, but they are not, in themselves, friends without qualification.

Just as some virtues are good by their act, others by their habit, so also is the case with friendship. Some men are friends by the pleasure they take in the act of living together. Some men friends by habit, such as men who are asleep or men who, despite being separate from each other in different places, continue with the habit of acting friendly toward one another.

Nothing is more characteristic of friends than living with one another, for blessed men wish at least to spend the day together, being solitary does not befit them.

Blessed men and others look for pleasant friends. Even blessed men must be pleasant to each other, and if they are they will have everything necessary for friendship.

He asks whether friends do want the greatest goods for their friends, for example, to be as gods, since by these greatest goods the friendship is ended.

A friend becomes a flatter if his love extends beyond the mean.

A friend is praised more for his love. Herein lies the imperfection of the friendship had by those who want more to be loved than to love.

Friends and the friendship between them lasts most when they love and are loved as both of the friends merit. If this is at first unequal, they may be equalized proportionally when one friend receives the love he merits. The longest lasting sort are those who are alike in virtue.

A virtuous friend does not afford his friend evil deeds, in fact he prevents him, and so, while they persevere in virtue, they will also remain friends.

Friends hold all things in common.

When either of the friends deems himself deserving of receiving more from the other than the other receives from him, a new kind of complaint ensues, and the friendship ends.

A better and superior friend thinks that more is coming to him, since more should be given to a better and more useful man. This is because if each man does not receive a return for what his actions merit, the man spending more will be engaged in charitable giving and not friendship

The superior friend should receive more, just as is the case in commercial exchanges. Those who put in more get more out.

A friend in need and in a lesser state thinks the opposite: that he should receive more, since it is the part of a good friend to support his friend in his needs. Otherwise, if a lesser man could not receive anything from his superior friend, friendship would useless.

It belongs to a friend to help his friend in his needs.

Each party seems to deserve and must afford the other more, but not of the same thing. More honour is due to the superior party, while more gain is due to the lesser.

We should give honour to a friend who benefits us by giving money.

Whether a good and virtuous friend takes precedence in our business.

Whether one should give a gift to a friend over making a return to a benefactor, if one cannot accomplish both.

We are ought to speak openly and share common use of all we have with our friends and brethren.

A friend is like his friend.

A friend who ends a friendship with a man who is no longer the friend whom he loved does nothing unreasonable.

He asks whether one should acts toward a former friend as if he were a stranger, as if he had never been a friend, or he should keep in mind the previous friendship.

A friend wishes and does what is good (or what seems good) for his friend's sake, and he wishes his friend to exist and to live for his friend's own sake. He lives with and has the same tastes as his friend, he rejoices and grieves with his him

A friend is another self.

A good friend is naturally desirable to a good and virtuous man.

A good friend is good to himself as he is good to his friend, since a friend is another self, and so because of this he chooses goodness for himself and also for his friend with whom he shares virtuous conversations and thoughts.

He asks whether one should have many friends. He refutes the following: the example of travelers, just as it is... to not receive any unknown folk or traveler, one should not receive. In the same way it is...to have none as a friend but dangerous to have any sort of person as a friend.

Term 22

Loving

He askes whether a man loves the good without qualification, or what is good for him, since there is sometimes a dissonance between these two. He resolves this by saying that the good without qualification, is lovable and what is good is lovable for every man.

Some seek more to be loved than to love because of their love of honour, and so many men love flattery.

Being loved and being honoured seem to be similar, and since many people desire honour, many seek to be loved because of their love for honour.

To be loved is greater than to be honoured, since it is a more prefferable thing in itself. Men desire to be honoured for some other cause or out of hope of gain, just as some who are undeserving take pleasure in honour from those who have power to bestow that honour.

One is not obligated to love an evil man, nor to become like an evil man.

Term 23

Lovers

Those who are fond of playing the flute are not able to attend to what others say to them. So it is that when we take much joy in a friendship, we cannot take heed of other things.

Term 24

The Lover

Lovers seem ridiculous when they think they deserve to be loved as much as they themselves love (if they in fact do not), but if they are worthy of such equal love, then it is perhaps justified.

Lovers of themselves are faulted.

Lovers of themselves are those who, in the common opinion afford themselves a greater part in wealth, temporal honours, and pleasures, since they believe these sorts of things to be best. They yield entirely to the concupiscible and irrational part of soul. It is for this reason that men such as this are reproached.

Term 25

To Love

Whether someone ought to love himself or his friend most.

Term 26

Love

The object of love is not anything, but is rather for some desirable object which is lovable. This can be good, pleasurable, or useful. Good and pleasurable things are loved as ends, but useful things are only as means to something else.

Term 27

The Soul

We should learn about the parts of the soul insofar as they concern our present investigations, since more in-depth knowledge is too burdensome for the matters at hand, what is said in independent sources (that is, in the De Anima) is enough.

The soul has parts: an irrational part and irrational part. Whether these two are two things are totally separate from one another or constitute a whole does not affect the present question.

In the soul there is some innate thing which conflicts with, and is opposed, to reason.

We can say that while we do see a distorted movement of the body, we cannot see it in the soul.

These three things are in the soul: passions, powers, and habits, and virtue will belong to one of these three. Examples follow of each of these.

Term 28

The Animal

All animals distinguish different foods, and enjoy some but not others.

Some kinds of animals are destructive, some foolish, while others are voracious.

Animals always strain in seeing and in hearing.

All animals are lacking in happiness, since they cannot engage in contemplation.

No animal is happy, since none share in contemplation.

Term 29

Love

When love resembles an activity, it is greater for the one who acts in excess.

Term 30

Desire

The desire for pleasure is insatiable and comes from irrational the part of the soul. Exercising the appetite only increases it for more, similar deeds.

Desire pushes toward the mean.

Term 31

The Mean-Observing Man

The man who observes the mean is truthful in his way of life and speaking and, acknowledging his character, neither exaggerating nor downplaying himself.

Term 32

Art

All arts are had at once with prudence, by this man is called good without qualification.

Arts are ordered under one power, just as horse-riding falls under (navifactiva clearly means shipbuilding)

Higher arts are called master or architectonic arts.

Art and virtue are concerned with difficult things.

Things made by the arts have their goodness in them, and this is what makes them done well.

An art looks toward the mean, since when some work of art is well crafted, it neither lacks anything nor needs anything added.

The arts would be destroyed if the craftsman did not give what he ought and in the right way, and if he were not rewarded properly for the worth of his work.

Art has nothing to do with what happens by chance.

An art is a habit of making according to some rational principle.

An art is concerned with making and a product. It concerns how contingent things are made, its origin is in the one making, not the action.

Art concerns making things while prudence concerns doing things.

Architectonic refers to law-making.

The arts of cosmetics and cooking seem to be ordered toward pleasure.

Term 33

The Ass

The ass certainly prefers grass to gold, since he takes more pleasure in the nourshiment of the grass than gold, as Heraclitus says.

Term 34

The Artisan

If a man does wish to become a perfect artisan, he must begin with universal knowledge of his discipline, and only then proceed to knowledge of this or that, since, as we have said, the sciences are concerned with the universal.

Term 34

The Argives

The Argives, fell in with the Spartans (who are most aggressive), though they mistook them for the Sicyonians, so they fled immediately. So do ignorant men, not know of the conditions of the engagement, and when they realise, flee straight away.

Term 36

A Contest

In contests it is not the bravest men who fight the most, but those with the most bodily strength and fitness.

Term 37

The Adulterer

Adulterers do many daring things out of sensual desire, but this certainly does not make them courageous.

Term 38

Athletes

How athletes fight with unexperienced trainees.

Term 39

Unskillfulness

Unskillfulness is a craft lacking a true course of reason.

Term 40

Anaxagoras

Anaxagoras, and others who concern themselves with wonderful and difficult matters, are called wise but not prudent men.

Term 41

The Covetous Man

The covetous man is unjust, and therefore he does not busy himself with all goods, but only with what relates to fortunes and misfortunes.

The covetous man has something in common with the unfair man.

Term 42

The Daring Man

The daring man is he who is in excess in daring terrible things, since he rushes to everything.

Daring men are quick to dangers, and when they arrive they depart again. But for brave men it is the other way round.