an origin very base, and a pedigree, if I may be allowed the
expression, far from noble. If this had been the case, a man's
inclination to friendship would be exactly in proportion to his low
opinion of his own resources. Whereas the truth is quite the other
way. For when a man's confidence in himself is greatest, when he
is so fortified by virtue and wisdom as to want nothing and to feel
absolutely self-dependent, it is then that he is most conspicuous for
seeking out and keeping up friendships. Did Africanus, for
example, want anything of me? Not the least in the world!
Neither did I of him. In my case it was an admiration of his virtue,
in his an opinion, may be, which he entertained of my character,
that caused our affection. Closer intimacy added to the warmth of
our feelings. But though many great material advantages did
ensue, they were not the source from which our affection
proceeded. For as we are not beneficent and liberal with any view
of extorting gratitude, and do not regard an act of kindness as an
investment, but follow a natural inclination to liberality; so we
look on friendship as worth trying for, not because we are attracted
to it by the expectation of ulterior gain, but in the conviction that
what it has to give us is from first to last included in the feeling
itself.

Far different is the view of those who, like brute beasts, refer
everything to sensual pleasure. And no wonder. Men who have
degraded all their powers of thought to an object so mean and
contemptible can of course raise their eyes to nothing lofty, to
nothing grand and divine. Such persons indeed let us leave out of
the present question. And let us accept the doctrine that the
sensation of love and the warmth of inclination have their origin in
a spontaneous feeling which arises directly the presence of probity