not forgotten dramatic propriety, and Socrates proposes at last to refer
the question to some older person.

SOME QUESTIONS RELATING TO FRIENDSHIP.

The subject of friendship has a lower place in the modern than in the
ancient world, partly because a higher place is assigned by us to love and
marriage. The very meaning of the word has become slighter and more
superficial; it seems almost to be borrowed from the ancients, and has
nearly disappeared in modern treatises on Moral Philosophy. The received
examples of friendship are to be found chiefly among the Greeks and Romans.
Hence the casuistical or other questions which arise out of the relations
of friends have not often been considered seriously in modern times. Many
of them will be found to be the same which are discussed in the Lysis. We
may ask with Socrates, 1) whether friendship is 'of similars or
dissimilars,' or of both; 2) whether such a tie exists between the good
only and for the sake of the good; or 3) whether there may not be some
peculiar attraction, which draws together 'the neither good nor evil' for
the sake of the good and because of the evil; 4) whether friendship is
always mutual,--may there not be a one-sided and unrequited friendship?
This question, which, like many others, is only one of a laxer or stricter
use of words, seems to have greatly exercised the minds both of Aristotle
and Plato.

5) Can we expect friendship to be permanent, or must we acknowledge with
Cicero, 'Nihil difficilius quam amicitiam usque ad extremum vitae
permanere'? Is not friendship, even more than love, liable to be swayed by
the caprices of fancy? The person who pleased us most at first sight or
upon a slight acquaintance, when we have seen him again, and under
different circumstances, may make a much less favourable impression on our