Lysis

a friend of the doctor?” — “Yes.” — “And disease is bad?” — “Of course.” — “And what about health?” I said. “Good or bad or neither?” — “Good,” 219a he said. — “And we were saying, it seems, that the body, being neither good nor bad, because of disease, and that because of the bad, is a friend of medicine, and medicine is good; and medicine has won the friendship for the sake of health, and health is good. Isn’t that so?” — “Yes.” — “And is health a friend or not a friend?” — “A friend.” — “And disease an enemy.” — “Very much so.” — “Then what is neither bad nor 219b good is, because of the bad and the enemy, a friend of the good, for the sake of the good and the friend.” — “Apparently.” — “Then the friend is a friend of the friend¹ for the sake of the friend, because of the enemy.” — “It seems so.”

“Very well,” I said. “Since we have come to this point, boys, let us pay attention, so as not to be deceived. For that the friend has become a friend of the friend, I let pass, and like, indeed, becomes a friend of like, which we say is impossible; but all the same let us look into this, so that what we are saying now may not deceive us. 219c Medicine, we say, is a friend for the sake of health.” — “Yes.” — “And health is a friend too?” — “Very much so.” — “Then if it is a friend, it is for the sake of something.” — “Yes.” — “Of something that is a friend, surely, if it is to keep to our earlier agreement.” — “Very much so.” — “Then will that, in turn, also be a friend for the sake of a friend?” — “Yes.” — “Then must we not either give up, going on like this,² or arrive at some starting point which will no longer lead back to another friend, but will come to that which is 219d first friend, for the sake of which we say all the other things too are friends?” — “Necessarily.” — “This, then, is what I mean: that all the other things which we said are friends for the sake of that thing, being, as it were, images