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[4]

But since people do apply the term ‘friends’ to persons whose regard for each other is based on utility, just as states can be ‘friends’ （since expediency is generally recognized as the motive of international alliances）, or on pleasure, as children make friends, perhaps we too must call such relationships friendships; but then we must say that there are several sorts of friendship, that between good men, as good, being friendship in the primary and proper meaning of the term, while the other kinds are friendships in an analogical sense,1 since such friends are friends in virtue of a sort of goodness and of likeness2 in them: insomuch as pleasure is good in the eyes of pleasure-lovers.

1 Literally, ‘by way of resemblance to true friendship’ : see 3.7, note.

2 Perhaps the words ‘and of likeness’ are interpolated; the following clause explains ‘goodness’ only. That utility is ‘a sort of goodness’ is assumed.

Aristotle in 23 Volumes, Vol. 19, translated by H. Rackham. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1934.

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