Note 61 — Chapter XII · APPLIED MORAL SCIENCE.

(3) Friendship. The society for which all rational beings are intended will naturally be found to exist principally among those who have become alive to their rational nature and destiny—in other words, among the wise. All who are wise and virtuous are friends, because they agree in their views of life, and because they all love one another’s virtue.61 Thus every action of a wise man contributes to the well-being of every other wise man—or, as the Stoics pointedly express it, if a wise man only makes a rational movement with his finger, he does a service to all wise men throughout the world.62 On the other hand, only a wise man knows how to love properly; true friendship only exists between wise men.63 Only the wise man possesses the art of making friends,64 since love is only won by love.65 If, however, true friendship is a union between the good and the wise, its value is thereby at once established; and hence it is distinctly enumerated among goods by the Stoics.66