A SUMMARY OF ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. 161 



does wrong, and all that the Seventh Book tells us 

 is, how it happens that knowledge may be latent 

 or dormant, and if not overpowered yet outwitted 

 by passion. There is nothing in Aristotle of the 

 sense of sin, for sin implies a personal God, as 

 crime implies the laws of society. 



Still the fact remains that the lower does triumph 

 over the higher, the body over the soul, the selfish 

 over the social, the animal over the divine. And 

 just as the family guards against atomism and 

 leads on to the TTO>UC, so friendship guards against 

 individualism and prepares the way for perfect 

 justice. Friendship introduces the man to another 

 self, tre/ooc ai>roc, whom he loves unselfishly, and in 

 whom he sees the extension and the counterpart 

 of his own best self. The friendship of the good, 

 which is the only true friendship, is thus a realized 

 love of ro Ka\ov divested of the lower and selfish 

 elements of gain or pleasure. We live in our own 

 acts, and in friendship we live in one another's 

 acts. We need friends not for gain, for the perfect 

 life is complete in itself, but because goodness loves 

 to see itself reflected, and even the divine life of 

 philosophy is twice blest when the philosopher 

 finds a true o-uva/oyoc, and God loves the philosopher 

 because in him He sees a dim and imperfect re- 

 flection of His own 



M 



