[
2]
Now in these unequal friendships the benefits that one
party receives and is entitled to claim from the other are not the same on either side;
but the friendship between parents and children will be enduring and equitable, when the
children render to the parents the services due to the authors of one's being, and the
parents to the children those due to one's offspring. The affection rendered in these
various unequal friendships should also be proportionate
1: the
better of the two parties, for instance, or the more useful or otherwise superior as the
case may be, should receive more affection than he bestows; since when the affection
rendered is proportionate to desert, this produces equality in a sense between the
parties, and equality is felt to be an essential element of friendship.
[
3]
Equality in friendship, however, does not seem to be like equality in matters of justice.
In the sphere of justice, ‘equal’ (fair) means
primarily proportionate to desert, and ‘equal in quantity’ is only a
secondary sense; whereas in friendship ‘equal in quantity’ is the
primary meaning, and ‘proportionate to desert’ only secondary.
[4]
This is clearly seen when a wide disparity arises
between two friends in point of virtue or vice, or of wealth, or anything else; they no
longer remain nor indeed expect to remain friends. This is most manifest in the case of
the gods, whose superiority in every good attribute is pre-eminent;