It had been hard for him that spake it to have put more truth and untruth together in few words, than in that speech, Whatsoever is delighted in solitude, is either a wild beast or a god. For it is most true, that a natural and secret hatred, and aversation towards society, in any man, hath somewhat of the savage beast; but it is most untrue, that it should have any character at all, of the divine nature; except it proceed, not out of a pleasure in solitude, but out of a love and desire to sequester a man’s self, for a higher conversation: such as is found to have been falsely and feignedly in some of the heathen; as Epimenides the Canadian, Numa the Roman, Empedocles the Sicilian, and Apollonius of Tyana; and truly and really, in divers of the ancient hermits and holy fathers of the church. But little do men perceive what solitude is, and how far it extendeth. For a crowd is not company; and faces are but a gallery of pictures; and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love. The Latin adage meeteth with it a little: Magna civitas, magna solitudo; because in a great town friends are scattered; so that there is not that fellowship, for the most part, which is in less neighborhoods. But we may go further, and affirm most truly, that it is a mere and miserable　solitude to want true friends; without which the　world is but a wilderness; and even in this sense also of solitude, whosoever in the frame of his nature and affections, is unfit for friendship, he taketh it of the beast, and not from humanity.

　　A principal fruit of friendship, is the ease and discharge of the fulness and swellings of the heart, which passions of all kinds do cause and induce. We know diseases of stoppings, and suffocations, are the most dangerous in the body; and it is not much otherwise in the mind; you may take sarza to open the liver, steel to open the spleen, flowers of sulphur for the lungs, castoreum for the brain; but no receipt openeth the heart, but a true friend; to whom you may impart griefs, joys, fears, hopes, suspicions, counsels, and whatsoever lieth upon the heart to oppress it, in a kind of civil shrift or confession.

　　“喜歡孤獨的人不是野獸便是神靈”。說這話的人若要在寥寥數語之中，更能把真理和邪說放在一處，那就很難了。因為，若說一個人心里有了一種天生的、隱秘的、對社會的憎恨嫌棄，則那個人不免帶點野獸的性質，這是極其真實的；然而要說這樣的一個人居然有任何神靈的性質，則是極不真實的。只有一點可為例外，那就是當這種憎恨社會的心理不是出于對孤獨的愛好而是出于一種想把自己退出社會以求更崇高的生活的心理的時候；這樣的人異教徒中有些人曾冒充過，如克瑞蒂人埃辟曼尼底斯、羅馬人努馬、西西利人安辟道克利斯和蒂安那人阿波郎尼亞斯；而基督教會中許多的古隱者和長老則確有如此者。但是一般人并不大明白何為孤獨以及孤獨的范圍。因為在沒有“仁愛”的地方，一群人眾并不能算做一個團體，許多面目也僅僅是一列圖畫；而交談則不過是鐃鈸叮鈴作聲而已。這種情形有句拉丁成語略能形容：“一座大城市就是一片大荒野”；因為在一座大城市里朋友們是散居各處的，所以就其大概而言，不像在小一點的城鎮里，有那樣的交情。但是我們不妨更進一步并且很真實地斷言說，缺乏真正的朋友乃是最純粹最可憐的孤獨；沒有友誼則斯世不過是一片荒野；我們還可以用這個意義來論“孤獨”說，凡是天性不配交友的人其性情可說是來自禽獸而不是來自人類的。

　　友誼的主要效用之一就在使人心中的憤懣抑郁之氣得以宣泄弛放，這些不平之氣是各種的情感都可以引起的。閉塞之癥于人的身體最為兇險，這是我們知道的；在人的精神方面亦復如此：你可以服撒爾沙以通肝，服鋼以通脾，服硫華以通肺，服海貍膠以通腦，然而除了一個真心的朋友之外沒有一樣藥劑是可以通心的。對一個真心的朋友，你可以傳達你的憂愁、歡悅、恐懼、希望、疑忌、諫凈，以及任何壓在你心上的事情，有如一種教堂之外的懺悔一樣。

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