there would be no friendship. Some other explanation then has to be
devised. May not desire be the source of friendship? And desire is of
what a man wants and of what is congenial to him. But then the congenial
cannot be the same as the like; for like, as has been already shown, cannot
be the friend of like. Nor can the congenial be the good; for good is not
the friend of good, as has been also shown. The problem is unsolved, and
the three friends, Socrates, Lysis, and Menexenus, are still unable to find
out what a friend is.

Thus, as in the Charmides and Laches, and several of the other Dialogues of
Plato (compare especially the Protagoras and Theaetetus), no conclusion is
arrived at. Socrates maintains his character of a 'know nothing;' but the
boys have already learned the lesson which he is unable to teach them, and
they are free from the conceit of knowledge. (Compare Chrm.) The dialogue
is what would be called in the language of Thrasyllus tentative or
inquisitive. The subject is continued in the Phaedrus and Symposium, and
treated, with a manifest reference to the Lysis, in the eighth and ninth
books of the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle. As in other writings of
Plato (for example, the Republic), there is a progress from unconscious
morality, illustrated by the friendship of the two youths, and also by the
sayings of the poets ('who are our fathers in wisdom,' and yet only tell us
half the truth, and in this particular instance are not much improved upon
by the philosophers), to a more comprehensive notion of friendship. This,
however, is far from being cleared of its perplexity. Two notions appear
to be struggling or balancing in the mind of Socrates:--First, the sense
that friendship arises out of human needs and wants; Secondly, that the
higher form or ideal of friendship exists only for the sake of the good.
That friends are not necessarily either like or unlike, is also a truth
confirmed by experience. But the use of the terms 'like' or 'good' is too
strictly limited; Socrates has allowed himself to be carried away by a sort