ABSTRACT
Social relations based upon virtue are one of the most profitable means of strengthening an individual’s moral powers and of permitting him to attain to achievements that no person could bring about in isolation. Friendship is an example of such an alliance. It is found where two people are bound together by a conscious and mutual love and by a desire for future association. The motives determining this desire may be of a superior or of an inferior nature. The doctor and the pharmacist seek each other out for business purposes and become what are known as business friends. So-called companionship or fellowship is based upon enjoyment. True friendship, however, is based upon great merits, and particularly virtue. Whoever holds the name of friendship in honour will reserve it for true friendship, which is based upon unselfish love and receives its inspiration from common moral endeavour. Other kinds of friendship are merely a mockery or a caricature of the genuine variety.
