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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits, by Seneca
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
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+
+Title: L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits
+
+Author: Seneca
+
+Editor: Aubrey Stewart
+
+Release Date: February, 2003  [Etext #3794]
+Posting Date: December 3, 2009
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK L. ANNAEUS SENECA ON BENEFITS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Franks, Robert Rowe and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team
+
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+
+
+
+L. ANNAEUS SENECA, ON BENEFITS
+
+By Seneca
+
+Edited by Aubrey Stewart
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+Seneca, the favourite classic of the early fathers of the church and
+of the Middle Ages, whom Jerome, Tertullian, and Augustine speak of as
+"Seneca noster," who was believed to have corresponded with St. Paul,
+and upon whom [Footnote: On the "De Clementia," an odd subject for the
+man who burned Servetus alive for differing with him.] Calvin wrote a
+commentary, seems almost forgotten in modern times. Perhaps some of his
+popularity may have been due to his being supposed to be the author
+of those tragedies which the world has long ceased to read, but which
+delighted a period that preferred Euripides to Aeschylus: while casuists
+must have found congenial matter in an author whose fantastic cases of
+conscience are often worthy of Sanchez or Escobar. Yet Seneca's morality
+is always pure, and from him we gain, albeit at second hand, an
+insight into the doctrines of the Greek philosophers, Zeno, Epicurus,
+Chrysippus, &c., whose precepts and system of religious thought had in
+cultivated Roman society taken the place of the old worship of Jupiter
+and Quirinus.
+
+Since Lodge's edition (fol. 1614), no complete translation of Seneca has
+been published in England, though Sir Roger L'Estrange wrote paraphrases
+of several Dialogues, which seem to have been enormously popular,
+running through more than sixteen editions. I think we may conjecture
+that Shakespeare had seen Lodge's translation, from several allusions to
+philosophy, to that impossible conception "the wise man," and especially
+from a passage in "All's Well that ends Well," which seems to breathe
+the very spirit of "De Beneficiis."
+
+  "'Tis pity--
+   That wishing well had not a body in it
+   Which might be felt: that we, the poorer born,
+   Whose baser stars do shut us up in wishes,
+   Might with effects of them follow our friends
+   And show what we alone must think; which never
+   Returns us thanks."
+
+   "All's Well that ends Well," Act i. sc. 1.
+
+Though, if this will not fit the supposed date of that play, he may
+have taken the idea from "The Woorke of Lucius Annaeus Seneca concerning
+Benefyting, that is too say, the dooing, receyving, and requyting of
+good turnes, translated out of Latin by A. Golding. J. Day, London,
+1578." And even during the Restoration, Pepys's ideal of virtuous and
+lettered seclusion is a country house in whose garden he might sit on
+summer afternoons with his friend, Sir W. Coventry, "it maybe, to read a
+chapter of Seneca." In sharp contrast to this is Vahlen's preface to the
+minor Dialogues, which he edited after the death of his friend Koch, who
+had begun that work, in which he remarks that "he has read much of this
+writer, in order to perfect his knowledge of Latin, for otherwise he
+neither admires his artificial subtleties of thought, nor his childish
+mannerisms of style" (Vahlen, preface, p. v., ed. 1879, Jena).
+
+Yet by the student of the history of Rome under the Caesars, Seneca is
+not to be neglected, because, whatever may be thought of the intrinsic
+merit of his speculations, he represents, more perhaps even than
+Tacitus, the intellectual characteristics of his age, and the tone of
+society in Rome--nor could we well spare the gossiping stories which we
+find imbedded in his graver dissertations. The following extract from
+Dean Merivale's "History of the Romans under the Empire" will show the
+estimate of him which has been formed by that accomplished writer:--
+
+"At Rome, we, have no reason, to suppose that Christianity was only the
+refuge of the afflicted and miserable; rather, if we may lay any stress
+on the documents above referred to, it was first embraced by persons in
+a certain grade of comfort and respectability; by persons approaching
+to what we should call the MIDDLE CLASSES in their condition, their
+education, and their moral views. Of this class Seneca himself was the
+idol, the oracle; he was, so to speak, the favourite preacher of the
+more intelligent and humane disciples of nature and virtue. Now the
+writings of Seneca show, in their way, a real anxiety among this class
+to raise the moral tone of mankind around them; a spirit of reform, a
+zeal for the conversion of souls, which, though it never rose, indeed,
+under the teaching of the philosophers, to boiling heat, still simmered
+with genial warmth on the surface of society. Far different as was their
+social standing-point, far different as were the foundations and the
+presumed sanctions of their teaching respectively, Seneca and St.
+Paul were both moral reformers; both, be it said with reverence, were
+fellow-workers in the cause of humanity, though the Christian could
+look beyond the proximate aims of morality and prepare men for a final
+development on which the Stoic could not venture to gaze. Hence there
+is so much in their principles, so much even in their language, which
+agrees together, so that the one has been thought, though it must be
+allowed without adequate reason, to have borrowed directly from the
+other. [Footnote: It is hardly necessary to refer to the pretended
+letters between St. Paul and Seneca. Besides the evidence from style,
+some of the dates they contain are quite sufficient to condemn them as
+clumsy forgeries. They are mentioned, but with no expression of belief
+in their genuineness, by Jerome and Augustine. See Jones, "On the
+Canon," ii. 80.]
+
+"But the philosopher, be it remembered, discoursed to a large and not
+inattentive audience, and surely the soil was not all unfruitful on
+which his seed was scattered when he proclaimed that God dwells not
+in temples of wood and stone, nor wants the ministrations of human
+hands;[Footnote: Sen., Ep. 95, and in Lactantius, Inst. vi.] that He has
+no delight in the blood of victims:[Footnote: Ep. 116: "Colitur Deus
+non tauris sed pia et recta voluntate."] that He is near to all His
+creatures:[Footnote: Ep. 41, 73.] that His Spirit resides in men's
+hearts:[Footnote: Ep. 46: "Sacer intra nos spiritus sedet."] that
+all men are truly His offspring:[Footnote: "De Prov," i.] that we are
+members of one body, which is God or Nature;[Footnote: Ep. 93, 95:
+"Membra sumus magni corporis."] that men must believe in God before
+they can approach Him:[Footnote: Ep. 95: "Primus Deorum cultus est
+Deos credere."] that the true service of God is to be like unto
+Him:[Footnote: Ep. 95: "Satis coluit quisquis imitatus est."] that all
+men have sinned, and none performed all the works of the law:[Footnote:
+Sen. de Ira. i. 14; ii. 27: "Quis est iste qui se profitetur omnibus
+legibus innocentem?"] that God is no respecter of nations, ranks, or
+conditions, but all, barbarian and Roman, bond and free, are alike under
+His all-seeing Providence.[Footnote: "De Benef.," iii. 18: "Virtus omnes
+admittit, libertinos, servos, reges." These and many other passages
+are collected by Champagny, ii. 546, after Fabricius and others, and
+compared with well-known texts of Scripture. The version of the Vulgate
+shows a great deal of verbal correspondence. M. Troplong remarks, after
+De Maistre, that Seneca has written a fine book on Providence, for which
+there was not even a name at Rome in the time of Cicero.--"L'Influence
+du Christianisme," &c., i., ch. 4.]
+
+"St. Paul enjoined submission and obedience even to the tyranny of
+Nero, and Seneca fosters no ideas subversive of political subjection.
+Endurance is the paramount virtue of the Stoic. To forms of government
+the wise man was wholly indifferent; they were among the
+external circumstances above which his spirit soared in serene
+self-contemplation. We trace in Seneca no yearning for a restoration
+of political freedom, nor does he even point to the senate, after
+the manner of the patriots of the day, as a legitimate check to the
+autocracy of the despot. The only mode, in his view, of tempering
+tyranny is to educate the tyrant himself in virtue. His was the
+self-denial of the Christians, but without their anticipated
+compensation. It seems impossible to doubt that in his highest flights
+of rhetoric--and no man ever recommended the unattainable with a finer
+grace--Seneca must have felt that he was labouring to build up a house
+without foundations; that his system, as Caius said of his style, was
+sand without lime. He was surely not unconscious of the inconsistency of
+his own position, as a public man and a minister, with the theories to
+which he had wedded himself; and of the impossibility of preserving in
+it the purity of his character as a philosopher or a man. He was aware
+that in the existing state of society at Rome, wealth was necessary to
+men high in station; wealth alone could retain influence, and a poor
+minister became at once contemptible. The distributor of the Imperial
+favours must have his banquets, his receptions, his slaves and freedmen;
+he must possess the means of attracting if not of bribing; he must not
+seem too virtuous, too austere, among an evil generation; in order to do
+good at all he must swim with the stream, however polluted it might be.
+All this inconsistency Seneca must have contemplated without blenching;
+and there is something touching in the serenity he preserved amidst the
+conflict that must have perpetually raged between his natural sense
+and his acquired principles. Both Cicero and Seneca were men of many
+weaknesses, and we remark them the more because both were pretenders to
+unusual strength of character; but while Cicero lapsed into political
+errors, Seneca cannot be absolved of actual crime. Nevertheless, if we
+may compare the greatest masters of Roman wisdom together, the Stoic
+will appear, I think, the more earnest of the two, the more anxious to
+do his duty for its own sake, the more sensible of the claims of mankind
+upon him for such precepts of virtuous living as he had to give. In an
+age of unbelief and compromise he taught that Truth was positive and
+Virtue objective. He conceived, what never entered Cicero's mind, the
+idea of improving his fellow-creatures; he had, what Cicero had not, a
+heart for conversion to Christianity."
+
+To this eloquent account of Seneca's position and of the tendency of his
+writings I have nothing to add. The main particulars of his life,
+his Spanish extraction (like that of Lacan and Martial), his father's
+treatises on Rhetoric, his mother Helvia, his brothers, his wealth, his
+exile in Corsica, his outrageous flattery of Claudius and his satiric
+poem on his death--"The Vision of Judgment," Merivale calls it, after
+Lord Byron--his position as Nero's tutor, and his death, worthy at once
+of a Roman and a Stoic, by the orders of that tyrant, may be read of in
+"The History of the Romans under the Empire," or in the article "Seneca"
+in the "Dictionary of Classical Biography," and need not be reproduced
+here: but I cannot resist pointing out how entirely Grote's view of the
+"Sophists" as a sort of established clergy, and Seneca's account of the
+various sects of philosophers as representing the religious thought of
+the time, is illustrated by his anecdote of Julia Augusta, the mother of
+Tiberius, better known to English readers as Livia the wife of Augustus,
+who in her first agony of grief at the loss of her first husband applied
+to his Greek philosopher, Areus, as to a kind of domestic chaplain, for
+spiritual consolation. ("Ad Marciam de Consolatione," ch. iv.)
+
+I take this opportunity of expressing my gratitude to the Rev. J. E.
+B. Mayor, Professor of Latin in the University of Cambridge, for his
+kindness in finding time among his many and important literary labours
+for reading and correcting the proofs of this work.
+
+The text which I have followed for De Beneficiis is that of Gertz,
+Berlin (1876.).
+
+AUBREY STEWART
+
+London, March, 1887.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+BOOK I. The prevalence of ingratitude--How a benefit ought to be
+bestowed--The three Graces--Benefits are the chief bond of human
+society--What we owe in return for a benefit received--A benefit
+consists not of a thing but of the wish to do good--Socrates and
+Aeschines--What kinds of benefits should be bestowed, and in what
+manner--Alexander and the franchise of Corinth.
+
+BOOK II. Many men give through weakness of character--We ought to give
+before our friends ask--Many benefits are spoiled by the manner of
+the giver--Marius Nepos and Tiberius--Some benefits should be given
+secretly--We must not give what would harm the receiver--Alexander's
+gift of a city--Interchange of benefits like a game of ball--From
+whom ought one to receive a benefit?--Examples--How to receive
+a benefit--Ingratitude caused by self-love, by greed, or by
+jealousy--Gratitude and repayment not the same thing--Phidias and the
+statue.
+
+BOOK III. Ingratitude--Is it worse to be ungrateful for kindness or
+not even to remember it?--Should ingratitude be punished by law?--Can
+a slave bestow a benefit?--Can a son bestow a benefit upon his
+father?--Examples
+
+BOOK IV. Whether the bestowal of benefits and the return of gratitude
+for them are desirable objects in themselves? Does God bestow
+benefits?--How to choose the man to be benefited--We ought not to look
+for any return--True gratitude--Of keeping one's promise--Philip and the
+soldier--Zeno
+
+BOOK V. Of being worsted in a contest of benefits--Socrates and
+Archelaus--Whether a man can be grateful to himself, or can bestow
+a benefit upon himself--Examples of ingratitude--Dialogue on
+ingratitude--Whether one should remind one's friends of what one has
+done for them--Caesar and the soldier--Tiberius.
+
+BOOK VI. Whether a benefit can be taken from one by force--Benefits
+depend upon thought--We are not grateful for the advantages which we
+receive from inanimate Nature, or from dumb animals--In order to lay me
+under an obligation you must benefit me intentionally--Cleanthes's story
+of the two slaves--Of benefits given in a mercenary spirit--Physicians
+and teachers bestow enormous benefits, yet are sufficiently paid by a
+moderate fee--Plato and the ferryman--Are we under an obligation to the
+sun and moon?--Ought we to wish that evil may befall our benefactors, in
+order that we may show our gratitude by helping them?
+
+BOOK VII. The cynic Demetrius--his rules of conduct--Of the truly
+wise man--Whether one who has done everything in his power to return
+a benefit has returned it--Ought one to return a benefit to a bad
+man?--The Pythagorean, and the shoemaker--How one ought to bear with the
+ungrateful.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+L. A. SENECA
+
+ON BENEFITS.
+
+
+DEDICATED TO
+
+AEBUTIUS LIBERALIS.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK I.
+
+I.
+
+
+Among the numerous faults of those who pass their lives recklessly and
+without due reflexion, my good friend Liberalis, I should say that there
+is hardly any one so hurtful to society as this, that we neither know
+how to bestow or how to receive a benefit. It follows from this that
+benefits are badly invested, and become bad debts: in these cases it is
+too late to complain of their not being returned, for they were thrown
+away when we bestowed them. Nor need we wonder that while the greatest
+vices are common, none is more common than ingratitude: for this I see
+is brought about by various causes. The first of these is, that we do
+not choose worthy persons upon whom to bestow our bounty, but although
+when we are about to lend money we first make a careful enquiry into
+the means and habits of life of our debtor, and avoid sowing seed in a
+worn-out or unfruitful soil, yet without any discrimination we scatter
+our benefits at random rather than bestow them. It is hard to say
+whether it is more dishonourable for the receiver to disown a benefit,
+or for the giver to demand a return of it: for a benefit is a loan, the
+repayment of which depends merely upon the good feeling of the debtor.
+To misuse a benefit like a spendthrift is most shameful, because we
+do not need our wealth but only our intention to set us free from the
+obligation of it; for a benefit is repaid by being acknowledged. Yet
+while they are to blame who do not even show so much gratitude as to
+acknowledge their debt, we ourselves are to blame no less. We find many
+men ungrateful, yet we make more men so, because at one time we harshly
+and reproachfully demand some return for our bounty, at another we are
+fickle and regret what we have given, at another we are peevish and
+apt to find fault with trifles. By acting thus we destroy all sense of
+gratitude, not only after we have given anything, but while we are in
+the act of giving it. Who has ever thought it enough to be asked for
+anything in an off-hand manner, or to be asked only once? Who, when he
+suspected that he was going to be asked for any thing, has not frowned,
+turned away his face, pretended to be busy, or purposely talked without
+ceasing, in order not to give his suitor a chance of preferring his
+request, and avoided by various tricks having to help his friend in his
+pressing need? and when driven into a corner, has not either put the
+matter off, that is, given a cowardly refusal, or promised his help
+ungraciously, with a wry face, and with unkind words, of which he seemed
+to grudge the utterance. Yet no one is glad to owe what he has not
+so much received from his benefactor, as wrung out of him. Who can be
+grateful for what has been disdainfully flung to him, or angrily cast
+at him, or been given him out of weariness, to avoid further trouble? No
+one need expect any return from those whom he has tired out with delays,
+or sickened with expectation. A benefit is received in the same temper
+in which it is given, and ought not, therefore, to be given carelessly,
+for a man thanks himself for that which he receives without the
+knowledge of the giver. Neither ought we to give after long delay,
+because in all good offices the will of the giver counts for much, and
+he who gives tardily must long have been unwilling to give at all. Nor,
+assuredly, ought we to give in offensive manner, because human nature is
+so constituted that insults sink deeper than kindnesses; the remembrance
+of the latter soon passes away, while that of the former is treasured in
+the memory; so what can a man expect who insults while he obliges? All
+the gratitude which he deserves is to be forgiven for helping us. On
+the other hand, the number of the ungrateful ought not to deter us
+from earning men's gratitude; for, in the first place, their number is
+increased by our own acts. Secondly, the sacrilege and indifference
+to religion of some men does not prevent even the immortal gods from
+continuing to shower their benefits upon us: for they act according to
+their divine nature and help all alike, among them even those who so ill
+appreciate their bounty. Let us take them for our guides as far as the
+weakness of our mortal nature permits; let us bestow benefits, not put
+them out at interest. The man who while he gives thinks of what he will
+get in return, deserves to be deceived. But what if the benefit turns
+out ill? Why, our wives and our children often disappoint our hopes,
+yet we marry--and bring up children, and are so obstinate in the face of
+experience that we fight after we have been beaten, and put to sea after
+we have been shipwrecked. How much more constancy ought we to show in
+bestowing benefits! If a man does not bestow benefits because he has
+not received any, he must have bestowed them in order to receive them
+in return, and he justifies ingratitude, whose disgrace lies in not
+returning benefits when able to do so. How many are there who are
+unworthy of the light of day? and nevertheless the sun rises. How many
+complain because they have been born? yet Nature is ever renewing our
+race, and even suffers men to live who wish that they had never lived.
+It is the property of a great and good mind to covet, not the fruit of
+good deeds, but good deeds themselves, and to seek for a good man even
+after having met with bad men. If there were no rogues, what glory would
+there be in doing good to many? As it is, virtue consists in bestowing
+benefits for which we are not certain of meeting with any return, but
+whose fruit is at once enjoyed by noble minds. So little influence ought
+this to have in restraining us from doing good actions, that even though
+I were denied the hope of meeting with a grateful man, yet the fear of
+not having my benefits returned would not prevent my bestowing them,
+because he who does not give, forestalls the vice of him who is
+ungrateful. I will explain what I mean. He who does not repay a benefit,
+sins more, but he who does not bestow one, sins earlier.
+
+  "If thou at random dost thy bounties waste,
+   Much must be lost, for one that's rightly placed."
+
+II. In the former verse you may blame two things, for one should not
+cast them at random, and it is not right to waste anything, much less
+benefits; for unless they be given with judgement, they cease to be
+benefits, and, may be called by any other name you please. The meaning
+of the latter verse is admirable, that one benefit rightly bestowed
+makes amends for the loss of many that have been lost. See, I pray you,
+whether it be not truer and more worthy of the glory of the giver, that
+we should encourage him to give, even though none of his gifts should
+be worthily placed. "Much must be lost." Nothing is lost because he
+who loses had counted the cost before. The book-keeping of benefits
+is simple: it is all expenditure; if any one returns it, that is clear
+gain; if he does not return it, it is not lost, I gave it for the sake
+of giving. No one writes down his gifts in a ledger, or like a grasping
+creditor demands repayment to the day and hour. A good man never thinks
+of such matters, unless reminded of them by some one returning his
+gifts; otherwise they become like debts owing to him. It is a base usury
+to regard a benefit as an investment. Whatever may have been the result
+of your former benefits, persevere in bestowing others upon other men;
+they will be all the better placed in the hands of the ungrateful, whom
+shame, or a favourable opportunity, or imitation of others may some day
+cause to be grateful. Do not grow weary, perform your duty, and act
+as becomes a good man. Help one man with money, another with credit,
+another with your favour; this man with good advice, that one with
+sound maxims. Even wild beasts feel kindness, nor is there any animal
+so savage that good treatment will not tame it and win love from it. The
+mouths of lions are handled by their keepers with impunity; to obtain
+their food fierce elephants become as docile as slaves: so that constant
+unceasing kindness wins the hearts even of creatures who, by their
+nature, cannot comprehend or weigh the value of a benefit. Is a man
+ungrateful for one benefit? perhaps he will not be so after receiving
+a second. Has he forgotten two kindnesses? perhaps by a third he may be
+brought to remember the former ones also.
+
+III. He who is quick to believe that he has thrown away his benefits,
+does really throw them away; but he who presses on and adds new benefits
+to his former ones, forces out gratitude even from a hard and forgetful
+breast. In the face of many kindnesses, your friend will not dare to
+raise his eyes; let him see you whithersoever he turns himself to escape
+from his remembrance of you; encircle him with your benefits. As for the
+power and property of these, I will explain it to you if first you will
+allow me to glance at a matter which does not belong to our subject, as
+to why the Graces are three in number, why they are sisters, why hand in
+hand, and why they are smiling and young, with a loose and transparent
+dress. Some writers think that there is one who bestows a benefit,
+one who receives it, and a third who returns it; others say that they
+represent the three sorts of benefactors, those who bestow, those who
+repay, and those who both receive and repay them. But take whichever
+you please to be true; what will this knowledge profit us? What is the
+meaning of this dance of sisters in a circle, hand in hand? It means
+that the course of a benefit is from hand to hand, back to the giver;
+that the beauty of the whole chain is lost if a single link fails, and
+that it is fairest when it proceeds in unbroken regular order. In the
+dance there is one, esteemed beyond the others, who represents the
+givers of benefits. Their faces are cheerful, as those of men who give
+or receive benefits are wont to be. They are young, because the memory
+of benefits ought not to grow old. They are virgins, because benefits
+are pure and untainted, and held holy by all; in benefits there should
+be no strict or binding conditions, therefore the Graces wear loose
+flowing tunics, which are transparent, because benefits love to be seen.
+People who are not under the influence of Greek literature may say that
+all this is a matter of course; but there can be no one who would think
+that the names which Hesiod has given them bear upon our subject. He
+named the eldest Aglaia, the middle one Euphrosyne, the third Thalia.
+Every one, according to his own ideas, twists the meaning of these
+names, trying to reconcile them with some system, though Hesiod merely
+gave his maidens their names from his own fancy. So Homer altered
+the name of one of them, naming her Pasithea, and betrothed her to a
+husband, in order that you may know that they are not vestal virgins.
+[Footnote: i.e. not vowed to chastity.]
+
+I could find another poet, in whose writings they are girded, and wear
+thick or embroidered Phrygian robes. Mercury stands with them for the
+same reason, not because argument or eloquence commends benefits,
+but because the painter chose to do so. Also Chrysippus, that man of
+piercing intellect who saw to the very bottom of truth, who speaks
+only to the point, and makes use of no more words than are necessary to
+express his meaning, fills his whole treatise with these puerilities,
+insomuch that he says but very little about the duties of giving,
+receiving, and returning a benefit, and has not so much inserted fables
+among these subjects, as he has inserted these subjects among a mass of
+fables. For, not to mention what Hecaton borrows from him, Chrysippus
+tells us that the three Graces are the daughters of Jupiter and
+Eurynome, that they are younger than the Hours, and rather more
+beautiful, and that on that account they are assigned as companions
+to Venus. He also thinks that the name of their mother bears upon the
+subject, and that she is named Eurynome because to distribute benefits
+requires a wide inheritance; as if the mother usually received her name
+after her daughters, or as if the names given by poets were true. In
+truth, just as with a 'nomenclator' audacity supplies the place of
+memory, and he invents a name for every one whose name he cannot
+recollect, so the poets think that it is of no importance to speak the
+truth, but are either forced by the exigencies of metre, or attracted by
+sweetness of sound, into calling every one by whatever name runs neatly
+into verse. Nor do they suffer for it if they introduce another name
+into the list, for the next poet makes them bear what name he pleases.
+That you may know that this is so, for instance Thalia, our present
+subject of discourse, is one of the Graces in Hesiod's poems, while in
+those of Homer she is one of the Muses.
+
+IV. But lest I should do the very thing which I am blaming, I will pass
+over all these matters, which are so far from the subject that they are
+not even connected with it. Only do you protect me, if any one attacks
+me for putting down Chrysippus, who, by Hercules, was a great man, but
+yet a Greek, whose intellect, too sharply pointed, is often bent and
+turned back upon itself; even when it seems to be in earnest it only
+pricks, but does not pierce. Here, however, what occasion is there for
+subtlety? We are to speak of benefits, and to define a matter which is
+the chief bond of human society; we are to lay down a rule of life, such
+that neither careless openhandedness may commend itself to us under the
+guise of goodness of heart, and yet that our circumspection, while it
+moderates, may not quench our generosity, a quality in which we ought
+neither to exceed nor to fall short. Men must be taught to be willing
+to give, willing to receive, willing to return; and to place before
+themselves the high aim, not merely of equalling, but even of surpassing
+those to whom they are indebted, both in good offices and in good
+feeling; because the man whose duty it is to repay, can never do so
+unless he out-does his benefactor; [Footnote: That is, he never comes up
+to his benefactor unless he leaves him behind: he can only make a dead
+heat of it by getting a start.] the one class must be taught to look
+for no return, the other to feel deeper gratitude. In this noblest of
+contests to outdo benefits by benefits, Chrysippus encourages us by
+bidding us beware lest, as the Graces are the daughters of Jupiter, to
+act ungratefully may not be a sin against them, and may not wrong those
+beauteous maidens. Do thou teach me how I may bestow more good things,
+and be more grateful to those who have earned my gratitude, and how the
+minds of both parties may vie with one another, the giver in forgetting,
+the receiver in remembering his debt. As for those other follies, let
+them be left to the poets, whose purpose is merely to charm the ear and
+to weave a pleasing story; but let those who wish to purify men's
+minds, to retain honour in their dealings, and to imprint on their minds
+gratitude for kindnesses, let them speak in sober earnest and act with
+all their strength; unless you imagine, perchance, that by such flippant
+and mythical talk, and such old wives' reasoning, it is possible for us
+to prevent that most ruinous consummation, the repudiation of benefits.
+
+V. However, while I pass over what is futile and irrelevant I must
+point out that the first thing which we have to learn is, what we owe in
+return for a benefit received. One man says that he owes the money which
+he has received, another that he owes a consulship, a priesthood,
+a province, and so on. These, however, are but the outward signs of
+kindnesses, not the kindnesses themselves. A benefit is not to be felt
+and handled, it is a thing which exists only in the mind. There is
+a great difference between the subject-matter of a benefit, and the
+benefit itself. Wherefore neither gold, nor silver, nor any of those
+things which are most highly esteemed, are benefits, but the benefit
+lies in the goodwill of him who gives them. The ignorant take notice
+only of that which comes before their eyes, and which can be owned and
+passed from hand to hand, while they disregard that which gives these
+things their value. The things which we hold in our hands, which we see
+with our eyes, and which our avarice hugs, are transitory, they may
+be taken from us by ill luck or by violence; but a kindness lasts even
+after the loss of that by means of which it was bestowed; for it is
+a good deed, which no violence can undo. For instance, suppose that I
+ransomed a friend from pirates, but another pirate has caught him and
+thrown him into prison. The pirate has not robbed him of my benefit, but
+has only robbed him of the enjoyment of it. Or suppose that I have saved
+a man's children from a shipwreck or a fire, and that afterwards disease
+or accident has carried them off; even when they are no more, the
+kindness which was done by means of them remains. All those things,
+therefore, which improperly assume the name of benefits, are means by
+which kindly feeling manifests itself. In other cases also, we find a
+distinction between the visible symbol and the matter itself, as when a
+general bestows collars of gold, or civic or mural crowns upon any one.
+What value has the crown in itself? or the purple-bordered robe? or the
+fasces? or the judgment-seat and car of triumph? None of these things
+is in itself an honour, but is an emblem of honour. In like manner,
+that which is seen is not a benefit--it is but the trace and mark of a
+benefit.
+
+VI. What, then, is a benefit? It is the art of doing a kindness which
+both bestows pleasure and gains it by bestowing it, and which does its
+office by natural and spontaneous impulse. It is not, therefore, the
+thing which is done or given, but the spirit in which it is done or
+given, that must be considered, because a benefit exists, not in that
+which is done or given, but in the mind of the doer or giver. How great
+the distinction between them is, you may perceive from this, that
+while a benefit is necessarily good, yet that which is done or given is
+neither good nor bad. The spirit in which they are given can exalt small
+things, can glorify mean ones, and can discredit great and precious
+ones; the objects themselves which are sought after have a neutral
+nature, neither good nor bad; all depends upon the direction given them
+by the guiding spirit from which things receive their shape. That which
+is paid or handed over is not the benefit itself, just as the honour
+which we pay to the gods lies not in the victims themselves, although
+they be fat and glittering with gold, [Footnote: Alluding to the
+practice of gilding the horns of the victims.] but in the pure and holy
+feelings of the worshippers.
+
+Thus good men are religious, though their offering be meal and their
+vessels of earthenware; whilst bad men will not escape from their
+impiety, though they pour the blood of many victims upon the altars.
+
+VII. If benefits consisted of things, and not of the wish to benefit,
+then the more things we received the greater the benefit would be. But
+this is not true, for sometimes we feel more gratitude to one who gives
+us trifles nobly, who, like Virgil's poor old soldier, "holds himself as
+rich as kings," if he has given us ever so little with a good will a man
+who forgets his own need when he sees mine, who has not only a wish but
+a longing to help, who thinks that he receives a benefit when he
+bestows one, who gives as though he would receive no return, receives a
+repayment as though he had originally given nothing, and who watches for
+and seizes an opportunity of being useful. On the other hand, as I said
+before, those gifts which are hardly wrung from the giver, or which drop
+unheeded from his hands, claim no gratitude from us, however great they
+may appear and may be. We prize much more what comes from a willing
+hand, than what comes from a full one. This man has given me but little,
+yet more he could not afford, while what that one has given is much
+indeed, but he hesitated, he put it off, he grumbled when he gave it,
+he gave it haughtily, or he proclaimed it aloud, and did it to please
+others, not to please the person to whom he gave it; he offered it to
+his own pride, not to me.
+
+VIII. As the pupils of Socrates, each in proportion to his means, gave
+him large presents, Aeschines, a poor pupil, said, "I can find nothing
+to give you which is worthy of you; I feel my poverty in this respect
+alone. Therefore I present you with the only thing I possess, myself. I
+pray that you may take this my present, such as it is, in good part, and
+may remember that the others, although they gave you much, yet left for
+themselves more than they gave." Socrates answered, "Surely you have
+bestowed a great present upon me, unless perchance you set a small value
+upon yourself. I will accordingly take pains to restore you to yourself
+a better man than when I received you." By this present Aeschines outdid
+Alcibiades, whose mind was as great as his Wealth, and all the splendour
+of the most wealthy youths of Athens.
+
+IX. You see how the mind even in the straitest circumstances finds the
+means of generosity. Aeschines seems to me to have said, "Fortune, it
+is in vain that you have made me poor; in spite of this I will find a
+worthy present for this man. Since I can give him nothing of yours, I
+will give him something of my own." Nor need you suppose that he held
+himself cheap; he made himself his own price. By a stroke of genius this
+youth discovered a means of presenting Socrates to himself. We must not
+consider how great presents are, but in what spirit they are given.
+
+A rich man is well spoken of if he is clever enough to render himself
+easy of access to men of immoderate ambition, and although he intends to
+do nothing to help them, yet encourages their unconscionable hopes; but
+he is thought the worse of if he be sharp of tongue, sour in appearance,
+and displays his wealth in an invidious fashion. For men respect and
+yet loathe a fortunate man, and hate him for doing what, if they had the
+chance, they would do themselves.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Men nowadays no longer secretly, but openly outrage the wives of others,
+and allow to others access to their own wives. A match is thought
+countrified, uncivilized, in bad style, and to be protested against by
+all matrons, if the husband should forbid his wife to appear in
+public in a litter, and to be carried about exposed to the gaze of all
+observers. If a man has not made himself notorious by a LIAISON with
+some mistress, if he does not pay an annuity to some one else's wife,
+married women speak of him as a poor-spirited creature, a man given
+to low vice, a lover of servant girls. Soon adultery becomes the most
+respectable form of marriage, and widowhood and celibacy are commonly
+practised. No one takes a wife unless he takes her away from some one
+else. Now men vie with one another in wasting what they have stolen, and
+in collecting together what they have wasted with the keenest avarice;
+they become utterly reckless, scorn poverty in others, fear personal
+injury more than anything else, break the peace by their riots, and by
+violence and terror domineer over those who are weaker than themselves.
+No wonder that they plunder provinces and offer the seat of judgment for
+sale, knocking it down after an auction to the highest bidder, since it
+is the law of nations that you may sell what you have bought.
+
+X. However, my enthusiasm has carried me further than I intended, the
+subject being an inviting one. Let me, then, end by pointing out that
+the disgrace of these crimes does not belong especially to our own time.
+Our ancestors before us have lamented, and our children after us will
+lament, as we do, the ruin, of morality, the prevalence of vice, and
+the gradual deterioration of mankind; yet these things are really
+stationary, only moved slightly to and fro like the waves which at
+one time a rising tide washes further over the land, and at another an
+ebbing one restrains within a lower water mark. At one time the chief
+vice will be adultery, and licentiousness will exceed all bounds; at
+another time a rage for feasting will be in vogue, and men will waste
+their inheritance in the most shameful of all ways, by the kitchen; at
+another, excessive care for the body, and a devotion to personal beauty
+which implies ugliness of mind; at another time, injudiciously granted
+liberty will show itself in wanton recklessness and defiance of
+authority; sometimes there will be a reign of cruelty both in public
+and private, and the madness of the civil wars will come upon us, which
+destroy all that is holy and inviolable. Sometimes even drunkenness will
+be held in honour, and it will be a virtue to swallow most wine. Vices
+do not lie in wait for us in one place alone, but hover around us in
+changeful forms, sometimes even at variance one with another, so that
+in turn they win and lose the field; yet we shall always be obliged to
+pronounce the same verdict upon ourselves, that we are and always were
+evil, and, I unwillingly add, that we always shall be. There always will
+be homicides, tyrants, thieves, adulterers, ravishers, sacrilegious,
+traitors: worse than all these is the ungrateful man, except we consider
+that all these crimes flow from ingratitude, without which hardly any
+great wickedness has ever grown to full stature. Be sure that you guard
+against this as the greatest of crimes in yourself, but pardon it as the
+least of crimes in another. For all the injury which you suffer is this:
+you have lost the subject-matter of a benefit, not the benefit itself,
+for you possess unimpaired the best part of it, in that you have given
+it. Though we ought to be careful to bestow our benefits by preference
+upon those who are likely to show us gratitude for them, yet we must
+sometimes do what we have little hope will turn out well, and bestow
+benefits upon those who we not only think will prove ungrateful, but who
+we know have been so. For instance, if I should be able to save a
+man's children from a great danger with no risk to myself, I should not
+hesitate to do so. If a man be worthy I would defend him even with my
+blood, and would share his perils; if he be unworthy, and yet by
+merely crying for help I can rescue him from robbers, I would without
+reluctance raise the shout which would save a fellow-creature.
+
+XI. The next point to be defined is, what kind of benefits are to be
+given, and in what manner. First let us give what is necessary, next
+what is useful, and then what is pleasant, provided that they be
+lasting. We must begin with what is necessary, for those things which
+support life affect the mind very differently from, those which adorn
+and improve it. A man may be nice, and hard to please, in things which
+he can easily do without, of which he can say, "Take them back; I do not
+want them, I am satisfied with what I have." Sometimes, we wish not
+only to, return what we have received, but even to throw it away. Of
+necessary things, the first class consists of things without which we
+cannot live; the second, of things without which we ought not to live;
+and the third, of things without which we should not care to live. The
+first class are, to be saved from the hands of the enemy, from the anger
+of tyrants, from proscription, and the various other perils which
+beset human life. By averting any one of these, we shall earn gratitude
+proportionate to the greatness of the danger, for when men think of
+the greatness of the misery from which they have been saved, the terror
+which they have gone through enhances the value of our services. Yet we
+ought not to delay rescuing any one longer than we are obliged, solely
+in order to make his fears add weight to our services. Next come those
+things without which we can indeed live, but in such a manner that it
+would be better to die, such as liberty, chastity, or a good conscience.
+After these are what we have come to hold dear by connexion and
+relationship and long use and custom, such as our wives and children,
+our household gods, and so on, to which the mind so firmly attaches
+itself that separation from them seems worse than death.
+
+After these come useful things, which form a very wide and varied
+class; in which will be money, not in excess, but enough for living in
+a moderate style; public office, and, for the ambitious, due advancement
+to higher posts; for nothing can be more useful to a man than to be
+placed in a position in which he can benefit himself. All benefits
+beyond these are superfluous, and are likely to spoil those who receive
+them. In giving these we must be careful to make them acceptable by
+giving them at the appropriate time, or by giving things which are not
+common, but such as few people possess, or at any rate few possess in
+our times; or again, by giving things in such a manner, that though not
+naturally valuable, they become so by the time and place at which they
+are given. We must reflect what present will produce the most pleasure,
+what will most frequently come under the notice of the possessor of it,
+so that whenever he is with it he may be with us also; and in all cases
+we must be careful not to send useless presents, such as hunting weapons
+to a woman or old man, or books to a rustic, or nets to catch wild
+animals to a quiet literary man. On the other hand, we ought to be
+careful, while we wish to send what will please, that we do not send
+what will insultingly remind our friends of their failings, as, for
+example, if we send wine to a hard drinker or drugs to an invalid, for a
+present which contains an allusion to the shortcomings of the receiver,
+becomes an outrage.
+
+XII. If we have a free choice as to what to give, we should above all
+choose lasting presents, in order that our gift may endure as long
+as possible; for few are so grateful as to think of what they have
+received, even when they do not see it. Even the ungrateful remember
+us by our gifts, when they are always in their sight and do not allow
+themselves to be forgotten, but constantly obtrude and stamp upon the
+mind the memory of the giver. As we never ought to remind men of what we
+have given them, we ought all the more to choose presents that will be
+permanent; for the things themselves will prevent the remembrance of the
+giver from fading away. I would more willingly give a present of plate
+than of coined money, and would more willingly give statues than clothes
+or other things which are soon worn out. Few remain grateful after the
+present is gone: many more remember their presents only while they make
+use of them. If possible, I should like my present not to be consumed;
+let it remain in existence, let it stick to my friend and share his
+life. No one is so foolish as to need to be told not to send gladiators
+or wild beasts to one who has just given a public show, or not to send
+summer clothing in winter time, or winter clothing in summer. Common
+sense must guide our benefits; we must consider the time and the place,
+and the character of the receiver, which are the weights in the
+scale, which cause our gifts to be well or ill received. How far more
+acceptable a present is, if we give a man what he has not, than if we
+give him what he has plenty of! if we give him what he has long been
+searching for in vain, rather than what he sees everywhere! Let us make
+presents of things which are rare and scarce rather than costly, things
+which even a rich man will be glad of, just as common fruits, such as
+we tire of after a few days, please us if they have ripened before the
+usual season. People will also esteem things which no one else has given
+to them, or which we have given to no one else.
+
+XIII. When the conquest of the East had flattered Alexander of Macedon
+into believing himself to be more than man, the people of Corinth sent
+an embassy to congratulate him, and presented him with the franchise of
+their city. When Alexander smiled at this form of courtesy, one of
+the ambassadors said, "We have never enrolled any stranger among our
+citizens except Hercules and yourself." Alexander willingly accepted the
+proffered honour, invited the ambassadors to his table, and showed them
+other courtesies. He did not think of who offered the citizenship, but
+to whom they had granted it; and being altogether the slave of glory,
+though he knew neither its true nature or its limits, had followed in
+the footsteps of Hercules and Bacchus, and had not even stayed his march
+where they ceased; so that he glanced aside from the givers of this
+honour to him with whom he shared it, and fancied that the heaven to
+which his vanity aspired was indeed opening before him when he was made
+equal to Hercules. In what indeed did that frantic youth, whose only
+merit was his lucky audacity, resemble Hercules? Hercules conquered
+nothing for himself; he travelled throughout the world, not coveting for
+himself but liberating the countries which he conquered, an enemy to bad
+men, a defender of the good, a peacemaker both by sea and land; whereas
+the other was from his boyhood a brigand and desolator of nations, a
+pest to his friends and enemies alike, whose greatest joy was to be the
+terror of all mankind, forgetting that men fear not only the fiercest
+but also the most cowardly animals, because of their evil and venomous
+nature.
+
+XIV. Let us now return to our subject. He who bestows a benefit without
+discrimination, gives what pleases no one; no one considers himself to
+be under any obligation to the landlord of a tavern, or to be the guest
+of any one with whom he dines in such company as to be able to say,
+"What civility has he shown to me? no more than he has shown to that
+man, whom he scarcely knows, or to that other, who is both his personal
+enemy and a man of infamous character. Do you suppose that he wished to
+do me any honour? not so, he merely wished to indulge his own vice of
+profusion." If you wish men to be grateful for anything, give it but
+seldom; no one can bear to receive what you give to all the world.
+Yet let no one gather from this that I wish to impose any bonds upon
+generosity; let her go to what lengths she will, so that she go a steady
+course, not at random. It is possible to bestow gifts in such a manner
+that each of those who receive them, although he shares them with many
+others, may yet feel himself to be distinguished from the common herd.
+Let each man have some peculiarity about his gift which may make him
+consider himself more highly favoured than the rest. He may say, "I
+received the same present that he did, but I never asked for it." "I
+received the same present, but mine was given me after a few days,
+whereas he had earned it by long service." "Others have the same
+present, but it was not given to them with the same courtesy and
+gracious words with which it was given to me." "That man got it because
+he asked for it; I did not ask." "That man received it as well as I, but
+then he could easily return it; one has great expectations from a rich
+man, old and childless, as he is; whereas in giving the same present to
+me he really gave more, because he gave it without the hope of receiving
+any return for it." Just as a courtesan divides her favours among
+many men, so that no one of her friends is without some proof of her
+affection, so let him who wishes his benefits to be prized consider how
+he may at the same time gratify many men, and nevertheless give each one
+of them some especial mark of favour to distinguish him from the rest.
+
+XV. I am no advocate of slackness in giving benefits: the more and the
+greater they are, the more praise they will bring to the giver. Yet
+let them be given with discretion; for what is given carelessly and
+recklessly can please no one. Whoever, therefore, supposes that in
+giving this advice I wish to restrict benevolence and to confine it to
+narrower limits, entirely mistakes the object of my warning. What virtue
+do we admire more than benevolence? Which do we encourage more? Who
+ought to applaud it more than we Stoics, who preach the brotherhood of
+the human race? What then is it? Since no impulse of the human mind can
+be approved of, even though it springs from a right feeling, unless it
+be made into a virtue by discretion, I forbid generosity to degenerate
+into extravagance. It is, indeed, pleasant to receive a benefit with
+open arms, when reason bestows it upon the worthy, not when it is flung
+hither or thither thoughtlessly and at random; this alone we care to
+display and claim as our own. Can you call anything a benefit, if
+you feel ashamed to mention the person who gave it you? How far more
+grateful is a benefit, how far more deeply does it impress itself upon
+the mind, never to be forgotten, when we rejoice to think not so much of
+what it is, as from whom we have received it! Crispus Passienus was wont
+to say that some men's advice was to be preferred to their presents,
+some men's presents to their advice; and he added as an example, "I
+would rather have received advice from Augustus than a present; I would
+rather receive a present from Claudius than advice." I, however, think
+that one ought not to wish for a benefit from any man whose judgement
+is worthless. What then? Ought we not to receive what Claudius gives? We
+ought; but we ought to regard it as obtained from fortune, which may at
+any moment turn against us. Why do we separate this which naturally is
+connected? That is not a benefit, to which the best part of a benefit,
+that it be bestowed with judgment, is wanting: a really great sum of
+money, if it be given neither with discernment nor with good will, is
+no more a benefit than if it remained hoarded. There are, however,
+many things which we ought not to reject, yet for which we cannot feel
+indebted.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK II.
+
+I.
+
+
+Let us consider, most excellent Liberalis, what still remains of the
+earlier part of the subject; in what way a benefit should be bestowed. I
+think that I can point out the shortest way to this; let us give in the
+way in which we ourselves should like to receive. Above all we should
+give willingly, quickly, and without any hesitation; a benefit commands
+no gratitude if it has hung for a long time in the hands of the giver,
+if he seems unwilling to part with it, and gives it as though he were
+being robbed of it. Even though some delay should intervene, let us
+by all means in our power strive not to seem to have been in two minds
+about giving it at all. To hesitate is the next thing to refusing to
+give, and destroys all claim to gratitude. For just as the sweetest part
+of a benefit is the kindly feeling of the giver, it follows that one who
+has by his very delay proved that he gives unwillingly, must be regarded
+not as having given anything, but as having been unable to keep it from
+an importunate suitor. Indeed, many men are made generous by want of
+firmness. The most acceptable benefits are those which are waiting for
+us to take them, which are easy to be received, and offer themselves to
+us, so that the only delay is caused by the modesty of the receiver.
+The best thing of all is to anticipate a person's wishes; the next, to
+follow them; the former is the better course, to be beforehand with our
+friends by giving them what they want before they ask us for it, for the
+value of a gift is much enhanced by sparing an honest man the misery of
+asking for it with confusion and blushes. He who gets what he asked
+for does not get it for nothing, for indeed, as our austere ancestors
+thought, nothing is so dear as that which is bought by prayers. Men
+would be much more modest in their petitions to heaven, if these had to
+be made publicly; so that even when addressing the gods, before whom
+we can with all honour bend our knees, we prefer to pray silently and
+within ourselves.
+
+II. It is unpleasant, burdensome, and covers one with shame to have to
+say, "Give me." You should spare your friends, and those whom you wish
+to make your friends, from having to do this; however quick he may be,
+a man gives too late who gives what he has been asked for. We ought,
+therefore, to divine every man's wishes, and when we have discovered
+them, to set him free from the hard necessity of asking; you may be sure
+that a benefit which comes unasked will be delightful and will not be
+forgotten. If we do not succeed in anticipating our friends, let us at
+any rate cut them short when they ask us for anything, so that we may
+appear to be reminded of what we meant to do, rather than to have been
+asked to do it. Let us assent at once, and by our promptness make it
+appear that we meant to do so even before we were solicited. As in
+dealing with sick persons much depends upon when food is given, and
+plain water given at the right moment sometimes acts as a remedy, so
+a benefit, however slight and commonplace it may be, if it be promptly
+given without losing a moment of time, gains enormously in importance,
+and wins our gratitude more than a far more valuable present given after
+long waiting and deliberation. One who gives so readily must needs give
+with good will; he therefore gives cheerfully and shows his disposition
+in his countenance.
+
+III. Many who bestow immense benefits spoil them by their silence or
+slowness of speech, which gives them an air of moroseness, as they say
+"yes" with a face which seems to say "no." How much better is it to join
+kind words to kind actions, and to enhance the value of our gifts by a
+civil and gracious commendation of them! To cure your friend of being
+slow to ask a favour of you, you may join to your gift the familiar
+rebuke, "I am angry with you for not having long ago let me know what
+you wanted, for having asked for it so formally, or for having made
+interest with a third party." "I congratulate myself that you have been
+pleased to make trial of me; hereafter, if you want anything, ask for it
+as your right; however, for this time I pardon your want of manners."
+By so doing you will cause him to value your friendship more highly
+than that, whatever it may have been, which he came to ask of you. The
+goodness and kindness of a benefactor never appears so great as when on
+leaving him one says, "I have to-day gained much; I am more pleased at
+finding him so kind than if I had obtained many times more of this, of
+which I was speaking, by some other means; I never can make any adequate
+return to this man for his goodness."
+
+IV. Many, however, there are who, by harsh words and contemptuous
+manner, make their very kindnesses odious, for by speaking and acting
+disdainfully they make us sorry that they have granted our requests.
+Various delays also take place after we have obtained a promise; and
+nothing is more heartbreaking than to be forced to beg for the very
+thing which you already have been promised. Benefits ought to be
+bestowed at once, but from some persons it is easier to obtain the
+promise of them than to get them. One man has to be asked to remind our
+benefactor of his purpose; another, to bring it into effect; and thus a
+single present is worn away in passing through many hands, until hardly
+any gratitude is left for the original promiser, since whoever we are
+forced to solicit after the giving of the promise receives some of the
+gratitude which we owe to the giver. Take care, therefore, if you
+wish your gifts to be esteemed, that they reach those to whom they are
+promised entire, and, as the saying is, without any deduction. Let no
+one intercept them or delay them; for no one can take any share of the
+gratitude due for your gifts without robbing you of it.
+
+V. Nothing is more bitter than long uncertainty; some can bear to have
+their hopes extinguished better than to have them deferred. Yet many
+men are led by an unworthy vanity into this fault of putting off the
+accomplishment of their promises, merely in order to swell the crowd of
+their suitors, like the ministers of royalty, who delight in prolonging
+the display of their own arrogance, hardly thinking themselves possessed
+of power unless they let each man see for a long time how powerful they
+are. They do nothing promptly, or at one sitting; they are indeed swift
+to do mischief, but slow to do good. Be sure that the comic poet speaks
+the most absolute truth in the verses:--
+
+   "Know you not this? If you your gifts delay,
+    You take thereby my gratitude away."
+
+And the following lines, the expression of virtuous pain--a
+high-spirited man's misery,--
+
+   "What thou doest, do quickly;"
+
+and:--
+
+    "Nothing in the world
+    Is worth this trouble; I had rather you
+    Refused it to me now."
+
+When the mind begins through weariness to hate the promised benefit, or
+while it is wavering in expectation of it, how can it feel grateful
+for it? As the most refined cruelty is that which prolongs the torture,
+while to kill the victim at once is a kind of mercy, since the extremity
+of torture brings its own end with it--the interval is the worst part of
+the execution--so the shorter time a benefit hangs in the balance, the
+more grateful it is to the receiver. It is possible to look forward with
+anxious disquietude even to good things, and, seeing that most benefits
+consist in a release from some form of misery, a man destroys the value
+of the benefit which he confers, if he has the power to relieve us,
+and yet allows us to suffer or to lack pleasure longer than we need.
+Kindness always eager to do good, and one who acts by love naturally
+acts at once; he who does us good, but does it tardily and with long
+delays, does not do so from the heart. Thus he loses two most important
+things: time, and the proof of his good will to us; for a lingering
+consent is but a form of denial.
+
+VI. The manner in which things are said or done, my Liberalis, forms a
+very important part of every transaction. We gain much by quickness, and
+lose much by slowness. Just as in darts, the strength of the iron head
+remains the same, but there is an immeasureable difference between the
+blow of one hurled with the full swing of the arm and one which merely
+drops from the hand, and the same sword either grazes or pierces
+according as the blow is delivered; so, in like manner, that which
+is given is the same, but the manner in which it is given makes the
+difference. How sweet, how precious is a gift, when he who gives does
+not permit himself to be thanked, and when while he gives he forgets
+that he has given! To reproach a man at the very moment that you are
+doing him a service is sheer madness; it is to mix insult with your
+favours. We ought not to make our benefits burdensome, or to add any
+bitterness to them. Even if there be some subject upon which you wish to
+warn your friend, choose some other time for doing so.
+
+VII. Fabius Verrucosus used to compare a benefit bestowed by a harsh man
+in an offensive manner to a gritty loaf of bread, which a hungry man is
+obliged to receive, but which is painful to eat. When Marius Nepos of
+the praetorian guard asked Tiberius Caesar for help to pay his debts,
+Tiberius asked him for a list of his creditors; this is calling a
+meeting of creditors, not paying debts. When the list was made out,
+Tiberius wrote to Nepos telling him that he had ordered the money to be
+paid, and adding some offensive reproaches. The result of this was
+that Nepos owed no debts, yet received no kindness; Tiberius, indeed,
+relieved him from his creditors, but laid him under no obligation.
+Tiberius, however, had some design in doing so; I imagine he did not
+wish more of his friends to come to him with the same request. His mode
+of proceeding was, perhaps, successful in restraining men's extravagant
+desires by shame, but he who wishes to confer benefits must follow quite
+a different path. In all ways you should make your benefit as acceptable
+as possible by presenting it in the most attractive form; but the method
+of Tiberius is not to confer benefits, but to reproach.
+
+VIII. Moreover, if incidentally I should say what I think of this part
+of the subject, I do not consider that it is becoming even to an emperor
+to give merely in order to cover a man with shame. "And yet," we are
+told, "Tiberius did not even by this means attain his object; for after
+this a good many persons were found to make the same request. He ordered
+all of them to explain the reasons of their indebtedness before the
+senate, and when they did so, granted them certain definite sums of
+money." This is not an act of generosity, but a reprimand. You may call
+it a subsidy, or an imperial contribution; it is not a benefit, for
+the receiver cannot think of it without shame. I was summoned before a
+judge, and had to be tried at bar before I obtained what I asked for.
+
+IX. Accordingly, all writers on ethical philosophy tell us that some
+benefits ought to be given in secret, others in public. Those things
+which it is glorious to receive, such as military decorations or public
+offices, and whatever else gains in value the more widely it is known,
+should be conferred in public; on the other hand, when they do not
+promote a man or add to his social standing, but help him when in
+weakness, in want, or in disgrace, they should be given silently, and so
+as to be known only to those who profit by them.
+
+X. Sometimes even the person who is assisted must be deceived, in order
+that he may receive our bounty without knowing the source from whence
+it flows. It is said that Arcesilaus had a friend who was poor, but
+concealed his poverty; who was ill, yet tried to hide his disorder, and
+who had not money for the necessary expenses of existence. Without his
+knowledge, Arcesilaus placed a bag of money under his pillow, in order
+that this victim of false shame might rather seem to find what he wanted
+than to receive. "What," say you, "ought he not to know from whom he
+received it?" Yes; let him not know it at first, if it be essential to
+your kindness that he should not; afterwards I will do so much for him,
+and give him so much that he will perceive who was the giver of the
+former benefit; or, better still, let him not know that he has received
+any thing, provided I know that I have given it. "This," you say, "is to
+get too little return for one's goodness." True, if it be an investment
+of which you are thinking; but if a gift, it should be given in the way
+which will be of most service to the receiver. You should be satisfied
+with the approval of your own conscience; if not, you do not really
+delight in doing good, but in being seen to do good. "For all that," say
+you, "I wish him to know it." Is it a debtor that you seek for? "For
+all that, I wish him to know it." What! though it be more useful, more
+creditable, more pleasant for him not to know his benefactor, will you
+not consent to stand aside? "I wish him to know." So, then, you would
+not save a man's life in the dark? I do not deny that, whenever the
+matter admits of it, one ought to take into consideration the pleasure
+which we receive from the joy of the receiver of our kindness; but if he
+ought to have help and is ashamed to receive it--if what we bestow upon
+him pains him unless it be concealed--I forbear to make my benefits
+public. Why should I not refrain from hinting at my having given him
+anything, when the first and most essential rule is, never to reproach
+a man with what you have done for him, and not even to remind him of it.
+The rule for the giver and receiver of a benefit is, that the one should
+straightway forget that he has given, the other should never forget that
+he has received it.
+
+XI. A constant reference to one's own services wounds our friend's
+feelings. Like the man who was saved from the proscription under
+the triumvirate by one of Caesar's friends, and afterwards found it
+impossible to endure his preserver's arrogance, they wish to cry, "Give
+me back to Caesar." How long will you go on saying, "I saved you, I
+snatched you from the jaws of death?" This is indeed life, if I remember
+it by my own will, but death if I remember it at yours; I owe you
+nothing, if you saved me merely in order to have some one to point at.
+How long do you mean to lead me about? how long do you mean to forbid
+me to forget my adventure? If I had been a defeated enemy, I should
+have been led in triumph but once. We ought not to speak of the benefits
+which we have conferred; to remind men of them is to ask them to return
+them. We should not obtrude them, or recall the memory of them; you
+should only remind a man of what you have given him by giving him
+something else. We ought not even to tell others of our good deeds.
+He who confers a benefit should be silent, it should be told by the
+receiver; for otherwise you may receive the retort which was made to one
+who was everywhere boasting of the benefit which he had conferred: "You
+will not deny," said his victim, "that you have received a return for
+it?" "When?" asked he. "Often," said the other, "and in many places,
+that is, wherever and whenever you have told the story." What need is
+there for you to speak, and to take the place which belongs to another?
+There is a man who can tell the story in a way much more to your credit,
+and thus you will gain glory for not telling it your self. You would
+think me ungrateful if, through your own silence, no one is to know of
+your benefit. So far from doing this, even if any one tells the story in
+our presence, we ought to make answer, "He does indeed deserve much more
+than this, and I am aware that I have not hitherto done any great things
+for him, although I wish to do so." This should not be said jokingly,
+nor yet with that air by which some persons repel those whom they
+especially wish to attract. In addition to this, we ought to act with
+the greatest politeness towards such persons. If the farmer ceases his
+labours after he has put in the seed, he will lose what he has sown; it
+is only by great pains that seeds are brought to yield a crop; no plant
+will bear fruit unless it be tended with equal care from first to last,
+and the same rule is true of benefits. Can any benefits be greater than
+those which children receive from their parents? Yet these benefits
+are useless if they be deserted while young, if the pious care of the
+parents does not for a long time watch over the gift which they have
+bestowed. So it is with other benefits; unless you help them, you will
+lose them; to give is not enough, you must foster what you have given.
+If you wish those whom you lay under an obligation to be grateful to
+you, you must not merely confer benefits upon them, but you must also
+love them. Above all, as I said before, spare their ears; you will weary
+them if you remind them of your goodness, if you reproach them with it
+you will make them hate you. Pride ought above all things to be avoided
+when you confer a benefit. What need have you for disdainful airs,
+or swelling phrases? the act itself will exalt you. Let us shun vain
+boasting: let us be silent, and let our deeds speak for us. A benefit
+conferred with haughtiness not only wins no gratitude, but causes
+dislike.
+
+XII. Gaius Caesar granted Pompeius Pennus his life, that is, if not
+to take away life be to grant it; then, when Pompeius was set free and
+returning thanks to him, he stretched out his left foot to be kissed.
+Those who excuse this action, and say that it was not done through
+arrogance, say that he wished to show him a gilded, nay a golden slipper
+studded with pearls. "Well," say they, "what disgrace can there be in a
+man of consular rank kissing gold and pearls, and what part of Caesar's
+whole body was it less pollution to kiss?" So, then, that man,
+the object of whose life was to change a free state into a Persian
+despotism, was not satisfied when a senator, an aged man, a man who had
+filled the highest offices in the state, prostrated himself before him
+in the presence of all the nobles, just as the vanquished prostrate
+themselves before their conqueror! He discovered a place below his knees
+down to which he might thrust liberty. What is this but trampling upon
+the commonwealth, and that, too, with the left foot, though you may say
+that this point does not signify? It was not a sufficiently foul and
+frantic outrage for the emperor to sit at the trial of a consular for
+his life wearing slippers, he must needs push his shoes into a senator's
+face.
+
+XIII. O pride, the silliest fault of great good fortune! how pleasant
+it is to take nothing from thee! how dost thou turn all benefits into
+outrages! how dost thou delight in all excess! how ill all things become
+thee! The higher thou risest the lower thou art, and provest that
+the good things by which thou art so puffed up profit thee not; thou
+spoilest all that thou givest. It is worth while to inquire why it is
+that pride thus swaggers and changes the form and appearance of her
+countenance, so that she prefers a mask to her own face. It is pleasant
+to receive gifts when they are conferred in a kindly and gentle manner,
+when a superior in giving them does not exalt himself over me, but shows
+as much good feeling as possible, placing himself on a level with me,
+giving without parade, and choosing a time when I am glad of his help,
+rather than waiting till I am in the bitterest need. The only way by
+which you can prevail upon proud men not to spoil their gifts by their
+arrogance is by proving to them that benefits do not appear greater
+because they are bestowed with great pomp and circumstance; that no one
+will think them greater men for so doing, and that excessive pride is a
+mere delusion which leads men to hate even what they ought to love.
+
+XIV. There are some things which injure those who receive them, things
+which it is not a benefit to give but to withhold; we should therefore
+consider the usefulness of our gift rather than the wish of the
+petitioner to receive it; for we often long for hurtful things, and are
+unable to discern how ruinous they are, because our judgment is biassed
+by our feelings; when, however, the longing is past, when that frenzied
+impulse which masters our good sense has passed away, we abhor those
+who have given us hurtful gifts. As we refuse cold water to the sick,
+or swords to the grief-stricken or remorseful, and take from the insane
+whatever they might in their delirium use to their own destruction, so
+must we persist in refusing to give anything whatever that is hurtful,
+although our friends earnestly and humbly, nay, sometimes even most
+piteously beg for it. We ought to look at the end of our benefits as
+well as the beginning, and not merely to give what men are glad to
+receive, but what they will hereafter be glad to have received. There
+are many who say, "I know that this will do him no good, but what am I
+to do? he begs for it, I cannot withstand his entreaties. Let him see
+to it; he will blame himself, not me." Not so: you he will blame, and
+deservedly; when he comes to his right mind, when the frenzy which
+now excites him has left him, how can he help hating the man who has
+assisted him to harm and to endanger himself? It is a cruel kindness to
+allow one's self to be won over into granting that which injures those
+who beg for it. Just as it is the noblest of acts to save men from harm
+against their will, so it is but hatred, under the mask of civility, to
+grant what is harmful to those who ask for it. Let us confer benefits of
+such a kind, that the more they are made use of the better they please,
+and which never can turn into injuries. I never will give money to a man
+if I know that he will pay it to an adulteress, nor will I be found in
+connexion with any wicked act or plan; if possible, I will restrain men
+from crime; if not, at least I will never assist them in it. Whether my
+friend be driven into doing wrong by anger, or seduced from the path of
+safety by the heat of ambition, he shall never gain the means of doing
+mischief except from himself, nor will I enable him one day to say,
+"He ruined me out of love for me." Our friends often give us what our
+enemies wish us to receive; we are driven by the unseasonable fondness
+of the former into the ruin which the latter hope will befall us. Yet,
+often as it is the case, what can be more shameful than that there
+should be no difference between a benefit and hatred?
+
+XV. Let us never bestow gifts which may recoil upon us to our shame.
+As the sum total of friendship consists in making our friends equal to
+ourselves, we ought to consider the interests of both parties; I must
+give to him that wants, yet so that I do not want myself; I must help
+him who is perishing, yet so that I do not perish myself, unless by so
+doing I can save a great man or a great cause. I must give no benefit
+which it would disgrace me to ask for. I ought not to make a small
+benefit appear a great one, nor allow great benefits to be regarded as
+small; for although it destroys all feeling of gratitude to treat what
+you give like a creditor, yet you do not reproach a man, but merely
+set off your gift to the best advantage by letting him know what it is
+worth. Every man must consider what his resources and powers are, so
+that we may not give either more or less than we are able. We must also
+consider the character and position of the person to whom we give, for
+some men are too great to give small gifts, while others are too small
+to receive great ones. Compare, therefore, the character both of the
+giver and the receiver, and weigh that which you give between the two,
+taking care that what is given be neither too burdensome nor too trivial
+for the one to give, nor yet such as the receiver will either treat with
+disdain as too small, or think too great for him to deal with.
+
+XVI. Alexander, who was of unsound mind, and always full of magnificent
+ideas, presented somebody with a city. When the man to whom he gave it
+had reflected upon the scope of his own powers, he wished to avoid the
+jealousy which so great a present would excite, saying that the gift did
+not suit a man of his position. "I do not ask," replied Alexander, "what
+is becoming for you to receive, but what is becoming for me to give."
+This seems a spirited and kingly speech, yet really it is a most foolish
+one. Nothing is by itself a becoming gift for any one: all depends upon
+who gives it, to whom he gives it, when, for what reason, where, and
+so forth, without which details it is impossible to argue about it.
+Inflated creature! if it did not become him to receive this gift, it
+could not become thee to give it. There should be a proportion between
+men's characters and the offices which they fill; and as virtue in all
+cases should be our measure, he who gives too much acts as wrongly as he
+who gives too little. Even granting that fortune has raised you so high,
+that, where other men give cups, you give cities (which it would show a
+greater mind in you not to take than to take and squander), still there
+must be some of your friends who are not strong enough to put a city in
+their pockets.
+
+XVII. A certain cynic asked Antigonus for a talent. Antigonus answered
+that this was too much for a cynic to ask for. After this rebuff he
+asked for a penny. Antigonus answered that this was too little for a
+king to give. "This kind of hair-splitting" (you say) "is contemptible:
+he found the means of giving neither. In the matter of the penny he
+thought of the king, in that of the talent he thought of the cynic,
+whereas with respect to the cynic it would have been right to receive
+the penny, with respect to the king it would have been right to give the
+talent. Though there may be things which are too great for a cynic to
+receive, yet nothing is so small, that it does not become a gracious
+king to bestow it." If you ask me, I applaud Antigonus; for it is not to
+be endured that a man who despises money should ask for it. Your cynic
+has publicly proclaimed his hatred of money, and assumed the character
+of one who despises it: let him act up to his professions. It is most
+inconsistent for him to earn money by glorifying his poverty. I wish
+to use Chrysippus's simile of the game of ball, in which the ball must
+certainly fall by the fault either of the thrower or of the catcher; it
+only holds its course when it passes between the hands of two persons
+who each throw it and catch it suitably. It is necessary, however, for a
+good player to send the ball in one way to a comrade at a long distance,
+and in another to one at a short distance. So it is with a benefit:
+unless it be suitable both for the giver and the receiver, it will
+neither leave the one nor reach the other as it ought. If we have to
+do with a practised and skilled player, we shall throw the ball more
+recklessly, for however it may come, that quick and agile hand will send
+it back again; if we are playing with an unskilled novice, we shall not
+throw it so hard, but far more gently, guiding it straight into his very
+hands, and we shall run to meet it when it returns to us. This is just
+what we ought to do in conferring benefits; let us teach some men how to
+do so, and be satisfied if they attempt it, if they have the courage and
+the will to do so. For the most part, however, we make men ungrateful,
+and encourage them, to be so, as if our benefits were only great when
+we cannot receive any gratitude for them; just as some spiteful
+ball-players purposely put out their companion, of course to the ruin of
+the game, which cannot be carried on without entire agreement Many men
+are of so depraved a nature that they had rather lose the presents which
+they make than be thought to have received a return for them, because
+they are proud, and like to lay people under obligations: yet how much
+better and more kindly would it be if they tried to enable the others
+also to perform their parts, if they encouraged them in returning
+gratitude, put the best construction upon all their acts, received one
+who wished to thank them just as cordially as if he came to repay what
+he had received, and easily lent themselves to the belief that those
+whom they have laid under an obligation wish to repay it. We blame
+usurers equally when they press harshly for payment, and when they delay
+and make difficulties about taking back the money which they have lent;
+in the same way, it is just as right that a benefit should be returned,
+as it is wrong to ask any one to return it. The best man is he who gives
+readily, never asks for any return, and is delighted when the return
+is made, because, having really and truly forgotten what he gave, he
+receives it as though it were a present.
+
+XVIII. Some men not only give, but even receive benefit haughtily, a
+mistake into which we ought not to fall: for now let us cross over to
+the other side of the subject, and consider how men should behave when
+they receive benefits. Every function which is performed by two persons
+makes equal demands upon both: after you have considered what a father
+ought to be, you will perceive that there remains an equal task, that
+of considering what a son ought to be: a husband has certain duties,
+but those of a wife are no less important. Each of these give and take
+equally, and each require a similar rule of life, which, as Hecaton
+observes, is hard to follow: indeed, it is difficult for us to attain
+to virtue, or even to anything that comes near virtue: for we ought not
+only to act virtuously but to do so upon principle. We ought to follow
+this guide throughout our lives, and to do everything great and small
+according to its dictates: according as virtue prompts us we ought both
+to give and to receive. Now she will declare at the outset that we ought
+not to receive benefits from every man. "From whom, then, ought we to
+receive them?" To answer you briefly, I should say, from those to whom
+we have given them. Let us consider whether we ought not to be even more
+careful in choosing to whom we should owe than to whom we should give.
+For even supposing that no unpleasantness should result (and very much
+always does), still it is a great misery to be indebted to a man to whom
+you do not wish to be under an obligation; whereas it is most delightful
+to receive a benefit from one whom you can love even after he has
+wronged you, and when the pleasure which you feel in his friendship is
+justified by the grounds on which it is based. Nothing is more wretched
+for a modest and honourable man than to feel it to be his duty to love
+one whom it does not please him to love. I must constantly remind you
+that I do not speak of wise men, who take pleasure in everything that is
+their duty, who have their feelings under command, and are able to lay
+down whatever law they please to themselves and keep it, but that I
+speak of imperfect beings struggling to follow the right path, who often
+have trouble in bending their passions to their will. I must therefore
+choose the man from whom I will accept a benefit; indeed, I ought to be
+more careful in the choice of my creditor for a benefit than for money;
+for I have only to pay the latter as much as I received of him, land
+when I have paid it I am free from all obligation; but to the other I
+must both repay more, and even when I have repaid his kindness we remain
+connected, for when I have paid my debt I ought again to renew it,
+while our friendship endures unbroken. Thus, as I ought not to make an
+unworthy man my friend, so I ought not to admit an unworthy man into
+that most holy bond of gratitude for benefits, from which friendship
+arises. You reply, "I cannot always say 'No': sometimes I must receive a
+benefit even against my will. Suppose I were given something by a cruel
+and easily offended tyrant, who would take it as an affront if his
+bounty were slighted? am I not to accept it? Suppose it were offered by
+a pirate, or a brigand, or a king of the temper of a pirate or brigand.
+What ought I to do? Such a man is not a worthy object for me to owe a
+benefit to." When I say that you ought to choose, I except vis major
+and fear, which destroy all power of choice. If you are free, if it lies
+with you to decide whether you will or not, then you will turn over in
+your own mind whether you will take a gift from a man or not; but if
+your position makes it impossible for you to choose, then be assured
+that you do not receive a gift, you merely obey orders. No one incurs
+any obligation by receiving what it was not in his power to refuse; if
+you want to know whether I wish to take it, arrange matters so that I
+have the power of saying 'No.' "Yet suppose he gave you your life." It
+does not matter what the gift was, unless it be given and received with
+good will: you are not my preserver because you have saved my life.
+Poison sometimes acts as a medicine, yet it is not on that account
+regarded as wholesome. Some things benefit us but put us under no
+obligation: for instance a man who intended to kill a tyrant, cut with
+his sword a tumour from which he suffered: yet the tyrant did not show
+him gratitude because by wounding him he had healed a disease which
+surgeons had feared to meddle with.
+
+XIX. You see that the actual thing itself is not of much importance,
+because it is not regarded as a benefit at all, if you do good when you
+intended to do evil; in such a case the benefit is done by chance, the
+man did harm. I have seen a lion in the amphitheatre, who recognized one
+of the men who fought with wild beasts, who once had been his keeper,
+and protected him against the attacks of the other animals. Are we,
+then, to say that this assistance of the brute was a benefit? By no
+means, because it did not intend to do it, and did not do it with kindly
+intentions. You may class the lion and your tyrant together: each of
+them saved a man's life, yet neither conferred a benefit. Because it is
+not a benefit to be forced to receive one, neither is it a benefit to be
+under an obligation to a man to whom we do not wish to be indebted. You
+must first give me personal freedom of decision, and then your benefit.
+
+XX. The question has been raised, whether Marcus Brutus ought to have
+received his life from the hands of Julius Caesar, who, he had decided,
+ought to be put to death.
+
+As to the grounds upon which he put him to death, I shall discuss them
+elsewhere; for to my mind, though he was in other respects a great man,
+in this he seems to have been entirely wrong, and not to have followed
+the maxims of the Stoic philosophy. He must either have feared the name
+of "King," although a state thrives best under a good king, or he must
+have hoped that liberty could exist in a state where some had so much to
+gain by reigning, and others had so much to gain by becoming slaves. Or,
+again, he must have supposed that it would be possible to restore the
+ancient constitution after all the ancient manners had been lost, and
+that citizens could continue to possess equal rights, or laws remain
+inviolate, in a state in which he had seen so many thousands of men
+fighting to decide, not whether they should be slaves or free, but which
+master they should serve. How forgetful he seems to have been, both of
+human nature and of the history of his own country, in supposing that
+when one despot was destroyed another of the same temper would not take
+his place, though, after so many kings had perished by lightning and the
+sword, a Tarquin was found to reign! Yet Brutus did right in receiving
+his life from Caesar, though he was not bound thereby to regard Caesar
+as his father, since it was by a wrong that Caesar had come to be in a
+position to bestow this benefit. A man does not save your life who does
+not kill you; nor does he confer a benefit, but merely gives you your
+discharge. [The 'discharge' alluded to is that which was granted to
+the beaten one of a pair of gladiators, when their duel was not to the
+death.]
+
+XXI. It seems to offer more opportunity for debate to consider what a
+captive ought to do, if a man of abominable vices offers him the price
+of his ransom? Shall I permit myself to be saved by a wretch? When safe,
+what recompense can I make to him? Am I to live with an infamous person?
+Yet, am I not to live with my preserver? I will tell you my opinion. I
+would accept money, even from such a person, if it were to save my life;
+yet I would only accept it as a loan, not as a benefit. I would repay
+him the money, and if I were ever able to preserve him from danger I
+would do so. As for friendship, which can only exist between equals, I
+would not condescend to be such a man's friend; nor would I regard him
+as my preserver, but merely as a money-lender, to whom I am only bound
+to repay what I borrowed from him.
+
+A man may be a worthy person for me to receive a benefit from, but it
+will hurt him to give it. For this reason I will not receive it, because
+he is ready to help me to his own prejudice, or even danger. Suppose
+that he is willing to plead for me in court, but by so doing will make
+the king his enemy. I should be his enemy, if, when he is willing to
+risk himself for me, if I were not to risk myself without him, which
+moreover is easier for me to do.
+
+As an instance of this, Hecaton calls the case of Arcesilaus silly, and
+not to the purpose. Arcesilaus, he says, refused to receive a large sum
+of money which was offered to him by a son, lest the son should offend
+his penurious father. What did he do deserving of praise, in not
+receiving stolen goods, in choosing not to receive them, instead of
+returning them? What proof of self-restraint is there in refusing to
+receive another man's property. If you want an instance of magnanimity,
+take the case of Julius Graecinus, whom Caius Caesar put to death merely
+on the ground that he was a better man than it suited a tyrant for
+anyone to be. This man, when he was receiving subscriptions from many of
+his friends to cover his expenses in exhibiting public games, would not
+receive a large sum which was sent him by Fabius Persicus; and when he
+was blamed for rejecting it by those who think more of what is given
+than of who gives it, he answered, "Am I to accept a present from a man
+when I would not accept his offer to drink a glass of wine with him?"
+
+When a consular named Rebilius, a man of equally bad character, sent
+a yet larger sum to Graecinus, and pressed him to receive it. "I must
+beg," answered he, "that you will excuse me. I did not take money from
+Persicus either." Ought we to call this receiving presents, or rather
+taking one's pick of the senate?
+
+XXII. When we have decided to accept, let us accept with cheerfulness,
+showing pleasure, and letting the giver see it, so that he may at once
+receive some return for his goodness: for as it is a good reason for
+rejoicing to see our friend happy, it is a better one to have made
+him so. Let us, therefore, show how acceptable a gift is by loudly
+expressing our gratitude for it; and let us do so, not only in the
+hearing of the giver, but everywhere. He who receives a benefit with
+gratitude, repays the first instalment of it.
+
+XXIII. There are some, who only like to receive benefits privately: they
+dislike having any witnesses and confidants. Such men, we may believe,
+have no good intentions. As a giver is justified in dwelling upon those
+qualities of his gift which will please the receiver, so a man, when he
+receives, should do so publicly; you should not take from a man what
+you are ashamed to owe him. Some return thanks to one stealthily, in a
+corner, in a whisper. This is not modesty, but a kind of denying of the
+debt: it is the part of an ungrateful man not to express his gratitude
+before witnesses. Some object to any accounts being kept between them
+and their benefactors, and wish no brokers to be employed or witnesses
+to be called, but merely to give their own signature to a receipt. Those
+men do the like, who take care to let as few persons as possible know
+of the benefits which they have received. They fear to receive them in
+public, in order that their success may be attributed rather to their
+own talents than to the help of others: they are very seldom to be
+found in attendance upon those to whom they owe their lives and their
+fortunes, and thus, while avoiding the imputation of servility, they
+incur that of ingratitude.
+
+XXIV. Some men speak in the most offensive terms of those to whom they
+owe most. There are men whom it is safer to affront than to serve,
+for their dislike leads them to assume the airs of persons who are not
+indebted to us: although nothing more is expected of them than that they
+should remember what they owe us, refreshing their memory from time to
+time, because no one can be grateful who forgets a kindness, and he
+who remembers it, by so doing proves his gratitude. We ought neither to
+receive benefits with a fastidious air, nor yet with a slavish humility:
+for if a man does not care for a benefit when it is freshly bestowed--a
+time at which all presents please us most--what will he do when its
+first charms have gone off? Others receive with an air of disdain, as
+much as to say. "I do not want it; but as you wish it so very much, I
+will allow you to give it to me." Others take benefits languidly, and
+leave the giver in doubt as to whether they know that they have received
+them; others barely open their lips in thanks, and would be less
+offensive if they said nothing. One ought to proportion one's thanks
+to the importance of the benefit received, and to use the phrases, "You
+have laid more of us than you think under an obligation," for everyone
+likes to find his good actions extend further than he expected. "You do
+not know what it is that you have done for me; but you ought to know
+how much more important it is than you imagine." It is in itself
+an expression of gratitude to speak of one's self as overwhelmed by
+kindness; or "I shall never be able to thank you sufficiently; but, at
+any rate, I will never cease to express everywhere my inability to thank
+you."
+
+XXV. By nothing did Furnius gain greater credit with Augustus, and make
+it easy for him to obtain anything else for which he might ask, than
+by merely saying, when at his request Augustus pardoned his father for
+having taken Antonius's side, "One wrong alone I have received at your
+hands, Caesar; you have forced me to live and to die owing you a greater
+debt of gratitude than I can ever repay." What can prove gratitude
+so well as that a man should never be satisfied, should never even
+entertain the hope of making any adequate return for what he has
+received? By these and similar expressions we must try not to conceal
+our gratitude, but to display it as clearly as possible. No words need
+be used; if we only feel as we ought, our thankfulness will be shown in
+our countenances. He who intends to be grateful, let him think how he
+shall repay a kindness while he is receiving it. Chrysippus says that
+such a man must watch for his opportunity, and spring forward whenever
+it offers, like one who has been entered for a race, and who stands at
+the starting-point waiting for the barriers to be thrown open; and even
+then he must use great exertions and great swiftness to catch the other,
+who has a start of him.
+
+XXVI. We must now consider what is the main cause of ingratitude. It is
+caused by excessive self-esteem, by that fault innate in all mortals,
+of taking a partial view of ourselves and our own acts, by greed, or by
+jealousy.
+
+Let us begin with the first of these. Every one is prejudiced in his own
+favour, from which it follows that he believes himself to have earned
+all that he receives, regards it as payment for his services, and does
+not think that he has been appraised at a valuation sufficiently near
+his own. "He has given me this," says he, "but how late, after how much
+toil? how much more might I have earned if I had attached myself to So
+and so, or to So and so? I did not expect this; I have been treated like
+one of the herd; did he really think that I only deserved so little?
+why, it would have been less insulting to have passed me over
+altogether."
+
+XXVII. The augur Cnaeus Lentulus, who, before his freedmen reduced him
+to poverty, was one of the richest of men, who saw himself in possession
+of a fortune of four hundred millions--I say advisedly, "saw," for he
+never did more than see it--was as barren and contemptible in intellect
+as he was in spirit. Though very avaricious, yet he was so poor a
+speaker that he found it easier to give men coins than words. This man,
+who owed all his prosperity to the late Emperor Augustus, to whom he had
+brought only poverty, encumbered with a noble name, when he had risen to
+be the chief man in Rome, both in wealth and influence, used sometimes
+to complain that Augustus had interrupted his legal studies, observing
+that he had not received anything like what he had lost by giving up the
+study of eloquence. Yet the truth was that Augustus, besides loading him
+with other gifts, had set him free from the necessity of making himself
+ridiculous by labouring at a profession in which he never could succeed.
+
+Greed does not permit any one to be grateful; for what is given is never
+equal to its base desires, and the more we receive the more we
+covet, for avarice is much more eager when it has to deal with great
+accumulations of wealth, just as the power of a flame is enormously
+greater in proportion to the size of the conflagration from which it
+springs. Ambition in like manner suffers no man to rest satisfied with
+that measure of public honours, to gain which was once the limit of his
+wildest hope; no one is thankful for becoming tribune, but grumbles at
+not being at once promoted to the post of praetor; nor is he grateful
+for this if the consulship does not follow; and even this does not
+satisfy him if he be consul but once. His greed ever stretches itself
+out further, and he does not understand the greatness of his success
+because he always looks forward to the point at which he aims, and never
+back towards that from which he started.
+
+XXVIII. A more violent and distressing vice than any of these is
+jealousy which disturbs us by suggesting comparisons. "He gave me this,
+but he gave more to that man, and he gave it to him before me;" after
+which he sympathises with no one, but pushes his own claims to the
+prejudice of every one else. How much more straightforward and modest
+is it to make the most of what we have received, knowing that no man is
+valued so highly by any one else as by his own, self! "I ought to have
+received more, but it was not easy for him to give more; he was obliged
+to distribute his liberality among many persons. This is only the
+beginning; let me be contented, and by my gratitude encourage him to
+show me more favour; he has not done as much as he ought, but he will
+do so the more frequently; he certainly preferred that man to me, but he
+has preferred me before many others; that man is not my equal either in
+virtue or in services, but he has some charm of his own: by complaining
+I shall not make myself deserve to receive more, but shall become
+unworthy of what I have received. More has been given to those most
+villainous men than has been given to me; well, what is that to the
+purpose? how seldom does Fortune show judgment in her choice? We
+complain every day of the success of bad men; very often the hail passes
+over the estates of the greatest villains and strikes down the crops of
+the best of men; every man has to take his chance, in friendship as well
+as in everything else." There is no benefit so great that spitefulness
+can pick no holes in it, none so paltry that it cannot be made more of
+by friendly interpretation. We shall never want a subject for complaint
+if we look at benefits on their wrong side.
+
+XXIX. See how unjustly the gifts of heaven are valued even by some who
+profess themselves philosophers, who complain that we are not as big
+as elephants, as swift as stags, as light as birds, as strong as bulls;
+that the skins of seals are stronger, of hinds prettier, of bears
+thicker, of beavers softer than ours; that dogs excel us in delicacy of
+scent, eagles in keenness of sight, crows in length of days, and many
+beasts in ease of swimming. And although nature itself does not allow
+some qualities, as for example strength and swiftness, to be combined
+in the same person, yet they call it a monstrous thing that men are not
+compounded of different and inconsistent good qualities, and call the
+gods neglectful of us because we have not been given health which even
+our vices cannot destroy, or knowledge of the future. They scarcely
+refrain from rising to such a pitch of impudence as to hate nature
+because we are below the gods, and not on an equality with them.
+How much better is it to turn to the contemplation of so many great
+blessings, and to be thankful that the gods have been pleased to give us
+a place second only to themselves in this most beautiful abode, and that
+they have appointed us to be the lords of the earth! Can any one compare
+us with the animals over whom we rule? Nothing has been denied us except
+what could not have been granted. In like manner, thou that takest an
+unfair view of the lot of mankind, think what blessings our Father has
+bestowed upon us, how far more powerful animals than ourselves we have
+broken to harness, how we catch those which are far swifter, how
+nothing that has life is placed beyond the reach of our weapons! We have
+received so many excellencies, so many crafts, above all our mind, which
+can pierce at once whatever it is directed against, which is swifter
+than the stars in their courses, for it arrives before them at the place
+which they will reach after many ages; and besides this, so many fruits
+of the earth, so much treasure, such masses of various things piled one
+upon another. You may go through the whole order of nature, and since
+you find no entire creature which you would prefer to be, you may choose
+from each, the special qualities which you would like to be given to
+yourself; then, if you rightly appreciate the partiality of nature for
+you, you cannot but confess yourself to be her spoiled child. So it is;
+the immortal gods have unto this day always held us most dear, and
+have bestowed upon us the greatest possible honour, a place nearest to
+themselves. We have indeed received great things, yet not too great.
+
+XXX. I have thought it necessary, my friend Liberalis, to state these
+facts, both because when speaking of small benefits one ought to make
+some mention of the greatest, and because also this shameless and
+hateful vice (of ingratitude), starting with these, transfers itself
+from them to all the rest. If a man scorn these, the greatest of all
+benefits, to whom will he feel gratitude, what gift will he regard as
+valuable or deserving to be returned: to whom will he be grateful for
+his safety or his life, if he denies that he has received from the gods
+that existence which he begs from them daily? He, therefore, who teaches
+men to be grateful, pleads the cause not only of men, but even of the
+gods, for though they, being placed above all desires, cannot be in want
+of anything, yet we can nevertheless offer them our gratitude.
+
+No one is justified in seeking an excuse for ingratitude in his own
+weakness or poverty, or in saying, "What am I to do, and how? When can I
+repay my debt to my superiors the lords of heaven and earth?" Avaricious
+as you are, it is easy for you to give them thanks, without expense;
+lazy though you be, you can do it without labour. At the same instant at
+which you received your debt towards them, if you wish to repay it,
+you have done as much as any one can do, for he returns a benefit who
+receives it with good will.
+
+XXXI. This paradox of the Stoic philosophy, that he returns a benefit
+who receives it with good will, is, in my opinion, either far from
+admirable, or else it is incredible. For if we look at everything merely
+from the point of view of our intentions, every man has done as much
+as he chose to do; and since filial piety, good faith, justice, and in
+short every virtue is complete within itself, a man may be grateful in
+intention even though he may not be able to lift a hand to prove his
+gratitude. Whenever a man obtains what he aimed at, he receives the
+fruit of his labour. When a man bestows a benefit, at what does he aim?
+clearly to be of service and afford pleasure to him upon whom he bestows
+it. If he does what he wishes, if his purpose reaches me and fills us
+each with joy, he has gained his object. He does not wish anything to be
+given to him in return, or else it becomes an exchange of commodities,
+not a bestowal of benefits. A man steers well who reaches the port for
+which he started: a dart hurled by a steady hand performs its duty if it
+hits the mark; one who bestows a benefit wishes it to be received with
+gratitude; he gets what he wanted if it be well received. "But," you
+say, "he hoped for some profit also." Then it was not a benefit, the
+property of which is to think nothing of any repayment. I receive what
+was given me in the same spirit in which it was given: then I have
+repaid it. If this be not true, then this best of deeds has this worst
+of conditions attached to it, that it depends entirely upon fortune
+whether I am grateful or not, for if my fortune is adverse I can make no
+repayment. The intention is enough. What then? am I not to do whatever
+I may be able to repay it, and ought I not ever to be on the watch for
+an opportunity of filling the bosom [Footnote: Sinus, the fold of the
+toga over the breast, used as a pocket by the Romans. The great French
+actor Talma, when dressed for the first time in correct classical
+costume, indignantly asked where he was to put his snuff-box.] of him
+from whom I have received any kindness? True; but a benefit is in
+an evil plight if we cannot be grateful for it even when we are
+empty-handed.
+
+XXXII. "A man," it is argued, "who has received a benefit, however
+gratefully he may have received it, has not yet accomplished all his
+duty, for there remains the part of repayment; just as in playing at
+ball it is something to catch the ball cleverly and carefully, but a man
+is not called a good player unless he can handily and quickly send
+back the ball which he has caught." This analogy is imperfect; and why?
+Because to do this creditably depends upon the movement and activity of
+the body, and not upon the mind: and an act of which we judge entirely
+by the eye, ought to be all clearly displayed. But if a man caught
+the ball as he ought to do, I should not call him a bad player for not
+returning it, if his delay in returning it was not caused by his own
+fault. "Yet," say you, "although the player is not wanting in skill,
+because he did one part of his duty, and was able to do the other part,
+yet in such a case the game is imperfect, for its perfection lies in
+sending the ball backwards and forwards." I am unwilling to expose this
+fallacy further; let us think that it is the game, not the player that
+is imperfect: so likewise in the subject which we are discussing, the
+thing which is given lacks something, because another equal thing ought
+to be returned for it, but the mind of the giver lacks nothing, because
+it has found another mind equal to itself, and as far as intentions go,
+has effected what it wished.
+
+XXXIII. A man bestows a benefit upon me: I receive it just as he wished
+it to be received: then he gets at once what he wanted, and the only
+thing which he wanted, and therefore I have proved myself grateful.
+After this it remains for me to enjoy my own resources, with the
+addition of an advantage conferred upon me by one whom I have obliged;
+this advantage is not the remainder of an imperfect service, but an
+addition to a perfected service. [Footnote: Nothing is wanted to make
+a benefit, conferred from good motives, perfect: if it is returned, the
+gratitude is to be counted as net profit.] For example, Phidias makes a
+statue. Now the product of an art is one thing, and that of a trade is
+another. It is the business of the art to make the thing which he wished
+to make, and that of the trade to make it with a profit. Phidias has
+completed his work, even though he does not sell it. The product,
+therefore, of his work is threefold: there is the consciousness of
+having made it, which he receives when his work is completed; there is
+the fame which he receives; and thirdly, the advantage which he obtains
+by it, in influence, or by selling it, or otherwise. In like manner the
+first fruit of a benefit is the consciousness of it, which we feel when
+we have bestowed it upon the person whom we chose; secondly and thirdly
+there is the credit which we gain by doing so, and there are those
+things which we may receive in exchange for it. So when a benefit has
+been graciously received, the giver has already received gratitude, but
+has not yet received recompense for it: that which we owe in return is
+therefore something apart from the benefit itself, for we have paid for
+the benefit itself when we accept it in a grateful spirit.
+
+XXXIV. "What," say you, "can a man repay a benefit, though he does
+nothing?" He has taken the first step, he has offered you a good thing
+with good feeling, and, which is the characteristic of friendship, has
+placed you both on the same footing. In the next place, a benefit is not
+repaid in the same manner as a loan: you have no reason for expecting
+me to offer you any payment; the account between us depends upon the
+feelings alone. What I say will not appear difficult, although it may
+not at first accord with your ideas, if you will do me the favour to
+remember that there are more things than there are words to express
+them. There is an enormous mass of things without names, which we do not
+speak of under distinctive names of their own, but by the names of other
+things transferred to them. We speak of our own foot, of the foot of a
+couch, of a sail, or of a poem; we apply the word 'dog' to a hound, a
+fish, and a star. Because we have not enough words to assign a separate
+name to each thing, we borrow a name whenever we want one. Bravery is
+the virtue which rightly despises danger, or the science of repelling,
+sustaining, or inviting dangers: yet we call a brave man a gladiator,
+and we use the same word for a good-for-nothing slave, who is led by
+rashness to defy death. Economy is the science of avoiding unnecessary
+expenditure, or the art of using one's income with moderation: yet we
+call a man of mean and narrow mind, most economical, although there is
+an immeasurable distance between moderation and meanness. These things
+are naturally distinct, yet the poverty of our language compels us to
+call both these men economical, just as he who views slight accidents
+with rational contempt, and he who without reason runs into danger are
+alike called brave. Thus a benefit is both a beneficent action, and also
+is that which is bestowed by that action, such as money, a house, an
+office in the state: there is but one name for them both, though their
+force and power are widely different.
+
+XXXV. Wherefore, give me your attention, and you will soon perceive that
+I say nothing to which you can object. That benefit which consists of
+the action is repaid when we receive it graciously; that other, which
+consists of something material, we have not then repaid, but we hope to
+do so. The debt of goodwill has been discharged by a return of goodwill;
+the material debt demands a material return. Thus, although we may
+declare that he who has received a benefit with good-will has returned
+the favour, yet we counsel him to return to the giver something of the
+same kind as that which he has received. Some part of what we have said
+departs from the conventional line of thought, and then rejoins it by
+another path. We declare that a wise man cannot receive an injury; yet,
+if a man hits him with his fist, that man will be found guilty of doing
+him an injury. We declare that a fool can possess nothing; yet if a man
+stole anything from a fool, we should find that man guilty of theft. We
+declare that all men are mad, yet we do not dose all men with hellebore;
+but we put into the hands of these very persons, whom we call madmen,
+both the right of voting and of pronouncing judgment. Similarly, we say
+that a man who has received a benefit with good-will has returned the
+favour, yet we leave him in debt nevertheless--bound to repay it even
+though he has repaid it. This is not to disown benefits, but is an
+encouragement to us neither to fear to receive benefits, nor to faint
+under the too great burden of them. "Good things have been given to me;
+I have been preserved from starving; I have been saved from the misery
+of abject poverty; my life, and what is dearer than life, my liberty,
+has been preserved. How shall I be able to repay these favours? When
+will the day come upon which I can prove my gratitude to him?" When a
+man speaks thus, the day has already come. Receive a benefit, embrace
+it, rejoice, not that you have received it, but that you have to owe it
+and return it; then you will never be in peril of the great sin of being
+rendered ungrateful by mischance. I will not enumerate any difficulties
+to you, lest you should despair, and faint at the prospect of a long and
+laborious servitude. I do not refer you to the future; do it with what
+means you have at hand. You never will be grateful unless you are so
+straightway. What, then, will you do? You need not take up arms, yet
+perhaps you may have to do so; you need not cross the seas, yet it may
+be that you will pay your debt, even when the wind threatens to blow a
+gale. Do you wish to return the benefit? Then receive it graciously;
+you have then returned the favour--not, indeed, so that you can think
+yourself to have repaid it, but so that you can owe it with a quieter
+conscience.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK III.
+
+I.
+
+
+Not to return gratitude for benefits, my AEbutius Liberalis, is
+both base in itself, and is thought base by all men; wherefore even
+ungrateful men complain of ingratitude, and yet what all condemn is at
+the same time rooted in all; and so far do men sometimes run into the
+other extreme that some of them become our bitterest enemies, not merely
+after receiving benefits from us, but because they have received them.
+I cannot deny that some do this out of sheer badness of nature; but
+more do so because lapse of time destroys their remembrance, for time
+gradually effaces what they felt vividly at the moment. I remember
+having had an argument with you about this class of persons, whom you
+wished to call forgetful rather than ungrateful, as if that which caused
+a man to be ungrateful was any excuse for his being so, or as if the
+fact of this happening to a man prevented his being ungrateful, when we
+know that it only happens to ungrateful men. There are many classes of
+the ungrateful, as there are of thieves or of homicides, who all have
+the same fault, though there is a great variety in its various forms.
+The man is ungrateful who denies that he has received a benefit; who
+pretends that he has not received it; who does not return it. The most
+ungrateful man of all is he who forgets it. The others, though they do
+not repay it, yet feel their debt, and possess some traces of worth,
+though obstructed by their bad conscience. They may by some means and at
+some time be brought to show their gratitude, if, for instance, they
+be pricked by shame, if they conceive some noble ambition such as
+occasionally rises even in the breasts of the wicked, if some easy
+opportunity of doing so offers; but the man from whom all recollection
+of the benefit has passed away can never become grateful. Which of the
+two do you call the worse--he who is ungrateful for kindness, or he who
+does not even remember it? The eyes which fear to look at the light are
+diseased, but those which cannot see it are blind. It is filial impiety
+not to love one's parents, but not to recognise them is madness.
+
+II. Who is so ungrateful as he who has so completely laid aside and cast
+away that which ought to be in the forefront of his mind and ever
+before him, that he knows it not? It is clear that if forgetfulness of
+a benefit steals over a man, he cannot have often thought about repaying
+it.
+
+In short, repayment requires gratitude, time, opportunity, and the help
+of fortune; whereas, he who remembers a benefit is grateful for it, and
+that too without expenditure. Since gratitude demands neither labour,
+wealth, nor good fortune, he who fails to render it has no excuse behind
+which to shelter himself; for he who places a benefit so far away that
+it is out of his sight, never could have meant to be grateful for it.
+Just as those tools which are kept in use, and are daily touched by the
+hand, are never in danger of growing rusty, while those which are not
+brought before our eyes, and lie as if superfluous, not being required
+for common use, collect dirt by the mere lapse of time, so likewise that
+which our thoughts frequently turn over and renew never passes from our
+memory, which only loses those things to which it seldom directs its
+eyes.
+
+III. Besides this, there are other causes which at times erase the
+greatest services from our minds. The first and most powerful of these
+is that, being always intent upon new objects of desire, we think, not
+of what we have, but of what we are striving to obtain. Those whose mind
+is fixed entirely upon what they hope to gain, regard with contempt all
+that is their own already. It follows that since men's eagerness for
+something new makes them undervalue whatever they have received, they
+do not esteem those from whom they have received it. As long as we are
+satisfied with the position we have gained, we love our benefactor, we
+look up to him, and declare that we owe our position entirely to him;
+then we begin to entertain other aspirations, and hurry forward to
+attain them after the manner of human beings, who when they have gained
+much always covet more; straightway all that we used to regard as
+benefits slip from our memory, and we no longer consider the advantages
+which we enjoy over others, but only the insolent prosperity of those
+who have outstripped us. Now no one can at the same time be both jealous
+and grateful, because those who are jealous are querulous and sad, while
+the grateful are joyous. In the next place, since none of us think of
+any time but the present, and but few turn back their thoughts to the
+past, it results that we forget our teachers, and all the benefits
+which we have obtained from them, because we have altogether left
+our childhood behind us: thus, all that was done for us in our youth
+perishes unremembered, because our youth itself is never reviewed. What
+has been is regarded by every one, not only as past, but as gone; and
+for the same reason, our memory is weak for what is about to happen in
+the future.
+
+IV. Here I must do Epicurus the justice to say that he constantly
+complains of our ingratitude for past benefits, because we cannot bring
+back again, or count among our present pleasures, those good things
+which we have received long ago, although no pleasures can be more
+undeniable than those which cannot be taken from us. Present good is not
+yet altogether complete, some mischance may interrupt it; the future is
+in suspense, and uncertain; but what is past is laid up in safety. How
+can any man feel gratitude for benefits, if he skips through his
+whole life entirely engrossed with the present and the future? It is
+remembrance that mates men grateful; and the more men hope, the less
+they remember.
+
+V. In the same way, my Liberalis, as some things remain in our memory as
+soon as they are learned, while to know others it is not enough to have
+learned them, for our knowledge slips away from us unless it be kept
+up--I allude to geometry and astronomy, and such other sciences as are
+Hard to remember because of their intricacy--so the greatness of some
+benefits prevents their being forgotten, while others, individually
+less, though many more in number, and bestowed at different times, pass
+from our minds, because, as I have stated above, we do not constantly
+think about them, and do not willingly recognize how much we owe to each
+of our benefactors. Listen to the words of those who ask for favours.
+There is not one of them who does not declare that his remembrance will
+be eternal, who does not vow himself your devoted servant and slave, or
+find, if he can, some even greater expression of humility with which to
+pledge himself. After a brief space of time these same men avoid
+their former expressions, thinking them abject, and scarcely befitting
+free-born men; afterwards they arrive at the same point to which, as
+I suppose, the worst and most ungrateful of men come--that is, they
+forget. So little does forgetfulness excuse ingratitude, that even the
+remembrance of a benefit may leave us ungrateful.
+
+VI. The question has been raised, whether this most odious vice ought to
+go unpunished; and whether the law commonly made use of in the schools,
+by which we can proceed against a man for ingratitude, ought to be
+adopted by the State also, since all men agree that it is just. "Why
+not?" you may say, "seeing that even cities cast in each other's teeth
+the services which they have performed to one another, and demand from
+the children some return for benefits conferred upon their fathers?" On
+the other hand, our ancestors, who were most admirable men, made demands
+upon their enemies alone, and both gave and lost their benefits with
+magnanimity. With the exception of Macedonia, no nation has ever
+established an action at law for ingratitude. And this is a strong
+argument against its being established, because all agree in blaming
+crime; and homicide, poisoning, parricide, and sacrilege are visited
+with different penalties in different countries, but everywhere with
+some penalty; whereas this most common vice is nowhere punished, though
+it is everywhere blamed. We do not acquit it; but as it would be most
+difficult to reckon accurately the penalty for so varying a matter, we
+condemn it only to be hated, and place it upon the list of those crimes
+which we refer for judgment to the gods.
+
+VII. Many arguments occur to me which prove that this vice ought not
+to come under the action of the law. First of all, the best part of a
+benefit is lost if the benefit can be sued for at law, as in the case of
+a loan, or of letting and hiring. Indeed, the finest part of a benefit
+is that we have given it without considering whether we shall lose it or
+not, that we have left all this to the free choice of him who receives
+it: if I call him before a judge, it begins to be not a benefit, but a
+loan. Next, though it is a most honourable thing to show gratitude, it
+ceases to be honourable if it be forced, for in that case no one will
+praise a grateful man any more than he praises him who restores the
+money which was deposited in his keeping, or who pays what he borrowed
+without the intervention of a judge. We should therefore spoil the two
+finest things in human life,--a grateful man and a beneficent man; for
+what is there admirable in one who does not give but merely lends a
+benefit, or in one who repays it, not because he wishes, but because he
+is forced to do so? There is no credit in being grateful, unless it
+is safe to be ungrateful. Besides this, all the courts would hardly be
+enough for the action of this one law. Who would not plead under it? Who
+would not be pleaded against? for every one exalts his own merits,
+every one magnifies even the smallest matters which he has bestowed upon
+another. Besides this, those things which form the subject of a judicial
+inquiry can be distinctly defined, and cannot afford unlimited licence
+to the judge; wherefore a good cause is in a better position if it
+before a judge than before an arbitrator, because the words of the law
+tie down a judge and define certain limits beyond which he may not pass,
+whereas the conscience of an arbitrator is free and not fettered by
+any rules, so that he can either give or take away, and can arrange his
+decision, not according to the precepts of law and justice, but just
+as his own kindly feeling or compassion may prompt him. An action for
+ingratitude would not bind a judge, but would place him in the position
+of an autocrat. It cannot be known what or how great a benefit is; all
+that would be really important would be, how indulgently the judge might
+interpret it. No law defines an ungrateful person, often, indeed, one
+who repays what he has received is ungrateful, and one who has not
+returned it is grateful. Even an unpractised judge can give his vote
+upon some matters; for instance, when the thing to be determined is
+whether something has or has not been done, when a dispute is terminated
+by the parties giving written bonds, or when the casting up of accounts
+decides between the disputants. When, however, motives have to be
+guessed at, when matters upon which wisdom alone can decide, are brought
+into court, they cannot be tried by a judge taken at random from the
+list of "select judges," [Footnote: See Smith's "Dict. of Antiq.," s.
+v] whom property and the inheritance of an equestrian fortune [Footnote:
+400,000 sesterces] has placed upon the roll.
+
+VIII. Ingratitude, therefore, is not only matter unfit to be brought
+into court, but no judge could be found fit to try it; and this you
+will not be surprised at, if you examine the difficulties of any one who
+should attempt to prosecute a man upon such a charge. One man may
+have given a large sum of money, but he is rich and would not feel it;
+another may have given it at the cost of his entire inheritance. The
+sum given is the same in each case, but the benefit conferred is not the
+same. Add another instance: suppose that to redeem a debtor from slavery
+one man paid money from his own private means, while another man paid
+the same sum, but had to borrow it or beg for it, and allow himself to
+be laid under a great obligation to some one; would you rank the man who
+so easily bestowed his benefit on an equality with him who was obliged
+to receive a benefit himself before he could bestow it? Some benefits
+are great, not because of their amount, but because of the time at which
+they are bestowed; it is a benefit to give an estate whose fertility
+can bring down the price of corn, and it is a benefit to give a loaf of
+bread in time of famine; it is a benefit to give provinces through which
+flow vast navigable rivers, and it is a benefit, when men are parched
+with thirst, and can scarcely draw breath through their dry throats,
+to show them a spring of water. Who will compare these cases with one
+another, or weigh one against the other? It is hard to give a decision
+when it is not the thing given, but its meaning, which has to be
+considered; though what is given is the same, yet if it be given
+under different circumstances it has a different value. A man may have
+bestowed a benefit upon me, but unwillingly; he may have complained of
+having given it; he may have looked at me with greater haughtiness than
+he was wont to do; he may have been so slow in giving it, that he would
+have done me a greater service if he had promptly refused it. How could
+a judge estimate the value of these things, when words, hesitation, or
+looks can destroy all their claim to gratitude?
+
+IX. What, again, could he do, seeing that some things are called
+benefits because they are unduly coveted, whilst others are not benefits
+at all, according to this common valuation, yet are of even greater
+value, though not so showy? You call it a benefit to cause a man to be
+adopted as a member of a powerful city, to get him enrolled among the
+knights, or to defend one who is being tried for his life: what do you
+say of him who gives useful advice? of him who holds you back when you
+would rush into crime? of him who strikes the sword from the hands of
+the suicide? of him who by his power of consolation brings back to the
+duties of life one who was plunged in grief, and eager to follow those
+whom he had lost? of him who sits at the bedside of the sick man, and
+who, when health and recovery depend upon seizing the right moment,
+administers food in due season, stimulates the failing veins with wine,
+or calls in the physician to the dying man? Who can estimate the value
+of such services as these? who can bid us weigh dissimilar benefits one
+with another? "I gave you a house," says one. Yes, but I forewarned
+you that your own house would come down upon your head. "I gave you an
+estate," says he. True, but I gave a plank to you when shipwrecked. "I
+fought for you and received wounds for you," says another. But I saved
+your life by keeping silence. Since a benefit is both given and returned
+differently by different people, it is hard to make them balance.
+
+X. Besides this, no day is appointed for repayment of a benefit, as
+there is for borrowed money; consequently he who has not yet repaid a
+benefit may do so hereafter: for tell me, pray, within what time a man
+is to be declared ungrateful? The greatest benefits cannot be proved by
+evidence; they often lurk in the silent consciousness of two men
+only; are we to introduce the rule of not bestowing benefits without
+witnesses? Next, what punishment are we to appoint for the ungrateful?
+is there to be one only for all, though the benefits which they have
+received are different? or should the punishment be varying, greater
+or less according to the benefit which each has received? Are our
+valuations to be restricted to pecuniary fines? what are we to do,
+seeing that in some cases the benefit conferred is life, and things
+dearer than life? What punishment is to be assigned to ingratitude for
+these? One less than the benefit? That would be unjust. One equal to it;
+death? What could be more inhuman than to cause benefits to result in
+cruelty?
+
+XI. It may be argued, "Parents have certain privileges: these are
+regarded as exempt from the action of ordinary rules, and so also ought
+to be the case with other beneficent persons." Nay; mankind has
+assigned a peculiar sanctity to the position of parents, because it
+was advantageous that children should be reared, and people had to be
+tempted into undergoing the toil of doing so, because the issue of their
+experiment was doubtful. One cannot say to them, as one does to others
+who bestow benefits, "Choose the man to whom you give: you must only
+blame yourself if you are deceived; help the deserving." In rearing
+children nothing depends upon the judgment of those who rear them; it is
+a matter of hope: in order, therefore, that people may be more willing
+to embark upon this lottery, it was right that they should be given a
+certain authority; and since it is useful for youth to be governed, we
+have placed their parents in the position of domestic magistrates, under
+whose guardianship their lives may be ruled. Moreover, the position of
+parents differs from that of other benefactors, for their having given
+formerly to their children does not stand in the way of their giving
+now and hereafter; and also, there is no fear of their falsely asserting
+that they have given: with others one has to inquire not only whether
+they have received, but whether they have given; but the good deeds of
+parents are placed beyond doubt. In the next place, one benefit bestowed
+by parents is the same for all, and might be counted once for all;
+while the others which they bestow are of various kinds, unlike one to
+another, differing from one another by the widest possible intervals;
+they can therefore come under no regular rule, since it would be more
+just to leave them all unrewarded than to give the same reward to all.
+
+XII. Some benefits cost much to the givers, some are of much value
+to the receivers but cost the givers nothing. Some are bestowed upon
+friends, others on strangers: now although that which is given be the
+same, yet it becomes more when it is given to one with whom you
+are beginning to be acquainted through the benefits which you have
+previously conferred upon him. One man may give us help, another
+distinctions, a third consolation. You may find one who thinks nothing
+pleasanter or more important than to have some one to save him from
+distress; you may again find one who would rather be helped to great
+place than to security; while some consider themselves more indebted to
+those who save their lives than to those who save their honour. Each
+of these services will be held more or less important, according as the
+disposition of our judge inclines to one or the other of them. Besides
+this, I choose my creditors for myself, whereas I often receive benefits
+from those from whom I would not, and sometimes I am laid under an
+obligation without my knowledge. What will you do in such a case? When
+a man has received a benefit unknown to himself, and which, had he known
+of it, he would have refused to receive, will you call him ungrateful if
+he does not repay it, however he may have received it? Suppose that some
+one has bestowed a benefit upon me, and that the same man has afterwards
+done me some wrong; am I to be bound by his one bounty to endure with
+patience any wrong that he may do me, or will it be the same as if I had
+repaid it, because he himself has by the subsequent wrong cancelled his
+own benefit? How, in that case, would you decide which was the greater;
+the present which the man has received, or the injury which has
+been done him? Time would fail me if I attempted to discuss all the
+difficulties which would arise.
+
+XIII. It may be argued that "we render men less willing to confer
+benefits by not supporting the claim of those which have been bestowed
+to meet with gratitude, and by not punishing those who repudiate them."
+But you would find, on the other hand, that men would be far less
+willing to receive benefits, if by so doing they were likely to incur
+the danger of having to plead their cause in court, and having more
+difficulty in proving their integrity. This legislation would also
+render us less willing to give: for no one is willing to give to those
+who are unwilling to receive, but one who is urged to acts of kindness
+by his own good nature and by the beauty of charity, will give all the
+more freely to those who need make no return unless they choose. It
+impairs the credit of doing a service, if in doing it we are carefully
+protected from loss.
+
+XIV. "Benefits, then, will be fewer, but more genuine: well, what harm
+is there in restricting people from giving recklessly?" Even those who
+would have no legislation upon the subject follow this rule, that we
+ought to be somewhat careful in giving, and in choosing those upon whom
+we bestow favours. Reflect over and over again to whom you are giving:
+you will have no remedy at law, no means of enforcing repayment. You are
+mistaken if you suppose that the judge will assist you: no law will
+make full restitution to you, you must look only to the honour of the
+receiver. Thus only can benefits retain their influence, and thus only
+are they admirable: you dishonour them if you make them the grounds of
+litigation, "Pay what you owe" is a most just proverb; and one which
+carries with it the sanction of all nations; but in dealing with
+benefits it is most shameful. "Pay!" How is a man to pay who owes his
+life, his position, his safety, or his reason to another? None of the
+greatest benefits can be repaid. "Yet," it is said, "you ought to give
+in return for them something of equal value." This is just what I have
+been saying, that the grandeur of the act is ruined if we make our
+benefits commercial transactions. We ought hot to encourage ourselves in
+avarice, in discontent, or in quarrels; the human mind is prone enough
+to these by nature. As far as we are able, let us check it, and cut off
+the opportunities for which it seeks.
+
+XV. Would that we could indeed persuade men to receive back money which
+they have lent from those debtors only who are willing to pay! would
+that no agreement ever bound the buyer to the seller, and that their
+interests were not protected by sealed covenants and agreements, but
+rather by honour and a sense of justice! However, men prefer what
+is needful to what is truly best, and choose rather to force their
+creditors to keep faith with them than to trust that they will do so.
+Witnesses are called on both sides; the one, by calling in brokers,
+makes several names appear in his accounts as his debtors instead of
+one; the other is not content with the legal forms of question and
+answer unless he holds the other party by the hand. What a shameful
+admission of the dishonesty and wickedness of mankind! men trust more to
+our signet-rings than to our intentions. For what are these respectable
+men summoned? for what do they impress their seals? it is in order that
+the borrower may not deny that he has received what he has received.
+You regard these men, I suppose, as above bribes, as maintainers of the
+truth: well, these very men will not be entrusted with money except on
+the same terms. Would it not, then, be more honourable to be deceived
+by some than to suspect all men of dishonesty? To fill up the measure
+of avarice one thing only is lacking, that we should bestow no benefit
+without a surety. To help, to be of service, is the part of a generous
+and noble mind; he who gives acts like a god, he who demands repayment
+acts like a money-lender. Why then, by trying to protect the rights of
+the former class, should we reduce them to the level of the basest of
+mankind?
+
+XVI. "More men," our opponent argues, "will be ungrateful, if no legal
+remedy exists against ingratitude." Nay, fewer, because then benefits
+will be bestowed with more discrimination, In the next place, it is not
+advisable that it should be publicly known how many ungrateful men there
+are: for the number of sinners will do away with the disgrace of
+the sin, and a reproach which applies to all men will cease to be
+dishonourable. Is any woman ashamed of being divorced, now that some
+noble ladies reckon the years of their lives, not by the number of the
+consuls, but by that of their husbands, now that they leave their
+homes in order to marry others, and marry only in order to be divorced?
+Divorce was only dreaded as long as it was unusual; now that no gazette
+appears without it, women learn to do what they hear so much about. Can
+any one feel ashamed of adultery, now that things have come to such
+a pass that no woman keeps a husband at all unless it be to pique her
+lover? Chastity merely implies ugliness. Where will you find any woman
+so abject, so repulsive, as to be satisfied with a single pair of
+lovers, without having a different one for each hour of the day; nor is
+the day long enough for all of them, unless she has taken her airing
+in the grounds of one, and passes the night with another. A woman is
+frumpish and old-fashioned if she does not know that "adultery with one
+paramour is nick-named marriage." Just as all shame at these vices has
+disappeared since the vice itself became so widely spread, so if you
+made the ungrateful begin to count their own numbers, you would both
+make them more numerous, and enable them to be ungrateful with greater
+impunity.
+
+XVII. "What then? shall the ungrateful man go unpunished?" What then,
+I answer, shall we punish the undutiful, the malicious, the avaricious,
+the headstrong, and the cruel? Do you imagine that those things which
+are loathed are not punished, or do you suppose that any punishment is
+greater than the hate of all men? It is a punishment not to dare receive
+a benefit from anyone, not to dare to bestow one, to be, or to fancy
+that you are a mark for all men's eyes, and to lose all appreciation of
+so excellent and pleasant a matter. Do you call a man unhappy who has
+lost his sight, or whose hearing has been impaired by disease, and do
+you not call him wretched who has lost the power of feeling benefits? He
+fears the gods, the witnesses of all ingratitude; he is tortured by
+the thought of the benefit which he has misapplied, and, in fine, he is
+sufficiently punished by this great penalty, that, as I said before, he
+cannot enjoy the fruits of this most delightful act. On the other hand,
+he who takes pleasure in receiving a benefit, enjoys an unvarying and
+continuous happiness, which he derives from consideration, not of
+the thing given, but of the intention of the giver. A benefit gives
+perpetual joy to a grateful man, but pleases an ungrateful one only for
+a moment. Can the lives of such men be compared, seeing that the one
+is sad and gloomy--as it is natural that a denier of his debts and a
+defrauder should be, a man who does not give his parents, his nurses, or
+his teachers the honour which is their due--while the other is joyous,
+cheerful, on the watch for an opportunity of proving his gratitude, and
+gaining much pleasure from this frame of mind itself? Such a man has no
+wish to become bankrupt, but only to make the fullest and most copious
+return for benefits, and that not only to parents and friends, but also
+to more humble persons; for even if he receives a benefit from his
+own slave, he does not consider from whom he receives it, but what he
+receives.
+
+XVIII. It has, however, been doubted by Hecaton and some other writers,
+whether a slave can bestow a benefit upon his master. Some distinguish
+between benefits, duties, and services, calling those things benefits
+which are bestowed by a stranger--that is, by one who could discontinue
+them without blame--while duties are performed by our children, our
+wives, and those whom relationship prompts and orders to afford us help;
+and, thirdly, services are performed by slaves, whose position is such
+that nothing which they do for their master can give them any claim upon
+him....
+
+Besides this, he who affirms that a slave does not sometimes confer
+a benefit upon his master is ignorant of the rights of man; for the
+question is, not what the station in life of the giver may be, but what
+his intentions are. The path of virtue is closed to no one, it lies open
+to all; it admits and invites all, whether they be free-born men, slaves
+or freed-men, kings or exiles; it requires no qualifications of family
+or of property, it is satisfied with a mere man. What, indeed, should we
+have to trust to for defence against sudden misfortunes, what could--a
+noble mind promise to itself to keep unshaken, if virtue could be lost
+together with prosperity? If a slave cannot confer a benefit upon his
+master, then no subject can confer a benefit upon his king, and no
+soldier upon his general; for so long as the man is subject to supreme
+authority, the form of authority can make no difference. If main force,
+or the fear of death and torture, can prevent a slave from gaining any
+title to his master's gratitude, they will also prevent the subjects of
+a king, or the soldiers of a general from doing so, for the same things
+may happen to either of these classes of men, though under different
+names.
+
+Yet men do bestow benefits upon their kings and their generals;
+therefore slaves can bestow benefits upon their masters. A slave can be
+just, brave, magnanimous; he can therefore bestow a benefit, for this
+is also the part of a virtuous man. So true is it that slaves can bestow
+benefits upon their masters, that the masters have often owed their
+lives to them.
+
+XIX. There is no doubt that a slave can bestow a benefit upon anyone;
+why, then, not upon his master? "Because," it is argued, "he cannot
+become his master's creditor if he gives him money. If this be not so,
+he daily lays his master under an obligation to him; he attends him when
+on a journey, he nurses him when sick, he works most laboriously at the
+cultivation of his estate; yet all these, which would be called benefits
+if done for us by anyone else, are merely called service when done by
+a slave. A benefit is that which some one bestows who has the option of
+withholding it:--now a slave has no power to refuse, so that he does
+not afford us his help, but obeys our orders, and cannot boast of having
+done what he could not leave undone." Even under these conditions I
+shall win the day, and will place a slave in such positions, that for
+many purposes he will be free; in the meanwhile, tell me, if I give you
+an instance of a slave fighting for his master's safety without regard
+to himself, pierced through with wounds, yet spending the last drops of
+his blood, and gaining time for his master to escape by the sacrifice of
+his life, will you say that this man did not bestow a benefit upon his
+master because he was a slave? If I give an instance of one who could
+not be bribed to betray his master's secrets by any of the offers of
+a tyrant, who was not terrified by any threats, nor overpowered by any
+tortures, but who, as far as he was able, placed his questioners upon a
+wrong scent, and, paid for his loyalty with his life; will you say
+that this man did not confer a benefit upon his master because he was a
+slave? Consider, rather, whether an example of virtue in a slave be not
+all the greater because it is rarer than in free men, and whether it be
+not all the more gratifying that, although to be commanded is odious,
+and all submission to authority is irksome, yet in some particular cases
+love for a master has been more powerful than men's general dislike to
+servitude. A benefit does not, therefore, cease to be a benefit because
+it is bestowed by a slave, but is all the greater on that account,
+because not even slavery could restrain him from bestowing it.
+
+XX. It is a mistake to imagine that slavery pervades a man's whole
+being; the better part of him is exempt from it: the body indeed is
+subjected and in the power of a master, but the mind is independent, and
+indeed is so free and wild, that it cannot be restrained even by this
+prison of the body, wherein it is confined, from following its own
+impulses, dealing with gigantic designs, and soaring into the infinite,
+accompanied by all the host of heaven. It is, therefore, only the body
+which misfortune hands over to a master, and which he buys and sells;
+this inward part cannot be transferred as a chattel. Whatever comes
+from this, is free; indeed, we are not allowed to order all things to be
+done, nor are slaves compelled to obey us in all things; they will not
+carry out treasonable orders, or lend their hands to an act of crime.
+
+XXI. There are some things which the law neither enjoins nor forbids; it
+is in these that a slave finds the means of bestowing benefits. As long
+as we only receive what is generally demanded from a slave, that is
+mere service; when more is given than a slave need afford us, it is a
+benefit; as soon as what he does begins to partake of the affection of
+a friend, it can no longer be called service. There are certain things
+with which a master is bound to provide his slave, such as food and
+clothing; no one calls this a benefit; but supposing that he indulges
+his slave, educates him above his station, teaches him arts which
+free-born men learn, that is a benefit. The converse is true in the case
+of the slave; anything which goes beyond the rules of a slave's duty,
+which is done of his own free will, and not in obedience to orders, is a
+benefit, provided it be of sufficient importance to be called by such a
+name if bestowed by any other person.
+
+XXII. It has pleased Chrysippus to define a slave as "a hireling for
+life." Just as a hireling bestows a benefit when he does more than he
+engaged himself to do, so when a slave's love for his master raises him
+above his condition and urges him to do something noble--something which
+would be a credit even to men more fortunate by birth--he surpasses the
+hopes of his master, and is a benefit found in the house. Do you think
+it is just that we should be angry with our slaves when they do less
+than their duty, and that we should not be grateful to them when they do
+more? Do you wish to know when their service is not a benefit? When the
+question can be asked, "What if he had refused to do it?" When he does
+that which he might have refused to do, we must praise his good will.
+Benefits and wrongs are opposites; a slave can bestow a benefit upon his
+master, if he can receive a wrong from his master. Now an official has
+been appointed to hear complaints of the wrongs done by masters to their
+slaves, whose duty it is to restrain cruelty and lust, or avarice in
+providing them with the necessaries of life. What follows, then? Is it
+the master who receives a benefit from his slave? nay, rather, it is
+one man who receives it from another. Lastly, he did all that lay in his
+power; he bestowed a benefit upon his master; it lies in your power to
+receive or not to receive it from a slave. Yet who is so exalted, that
+fortune may not make him need the aid even of the lowliest?
+
+XXIII. I shall now quote a number of instances of benefits, not all
+alike, some even contradictory. Some slaves have given their master
+life, some death; have saved him when perishing, or, as if that were
+not enough, have saved him by their own death; others have helped
+their master to die, some have saved his life by stratagem. Claudius
+Quadrigarius tells us in the eighteenth book of his "Annals," that
+when Grumentum was being besieged, and had been reduced to the greatest
+straits, two slaves deserted to the enemy, and did valuable service.
+Afterwards, when the city was taken, and the victors were rushing wildly
+in every direction, they ran before every one else along the streets,
+which they well knew, to the house in which they had been slaves, and
+drove their mistress before them; when they were asked who she might
+be, they answered that she was their mistress, and a most cruel one, and
+that they were leading her away for punishment. They led her outside the
+walls, and concealed her with the greatest care until the fighting
+was over; then, as the soldiery, satisfied with the sack of the city,
+quickly resumed the manners of Romans, they also returned to their
+own countrymen, and themselves restored their mistress to them. She
+manumitted each of them on the spot, and was not ashamed to receive her
+life from men over whom she had held the power of life and death. She
+might, indeed, especially congratulate herself upon this; for had
+she been saved otherwise, she would merely have received a common and
+hackneyed piece of kindness, whereas, by being saved as she was, she
+became a glorious legend, and an example to two cities. In the confusion
+of the captured city, when every one was thinking only of his own
+safety, all deserted her except these deserters; but they, that they
+might prove what had been their intentions in effecting that desertion,
+deserted again from the victors to the captive, wearing the masks of
+unnatural murderers.
+
+They thought--and this was the greatest part of the service which they
+rendered--they were content to seem to have murdered their mistress, if
+thereby their mistress might be saved from murder. Believe me, it is
+the mark of no slavish soul to purchase a noble deed by the semblance of
+crime.
+
+When Vettius, the praetor of the Marsi, was being led into the presence
+of the Roman general, his slave snatched a sword from the soldier who
+was dragging him along, and first slew his master. Then he said, "It is
+now time for me to look to myself; I have already set my master free,"
+and with these words transfixed himself with one blow. Can you tell me
+of anyone who saved his master more gloriously?
+
+XXIV. When Caesar was besieging Corfinium, Domitius, who was shut up in
+the city, ordered a slave of his own, who was also a physician, to give
+him poison. Observing the man's hesitation, he said, "Why do you delay,
+as though the whole business was in your power? I ask for death with
+arms in my hands." Then the slave assented, and gave him a harmless drug
+to drink. When Domitius fell asleep after drinking this, the slave went
+to his son, and said, "Give orders for my being kept in custody until
+you learn from the result whether I have given your father poison or
+no." Domitius lived, and Caesar saved his life; but his slave had saved
+it before.
+
+XXV. During the civil war, a slave hid his master, who had been
+proscribed, put on his rings and clothes, met the soldiers who were
+searching for him, and, after declaring that he would not stoop to
+entreat them not to carry out their orders, offered his neck to their
+swords. What a noble spirit it shows in a slave to have been willing
+to die for his master, at a time when few were faithful enough to
+wish their master to live! to be found kind when the state was cruel,
+faithful when it was treacherous! to be eager for the reward of
+fidelity, though it was death, at a time when such rich rewards were
+offered for treachery!
+
+XXVI. I will not pass over the instances which our own age affords. In
+the reign of Tiberius Caesar, there was a common and almost universal
+frenzy for informing, which was more ruinous to the citizens of Rome
+than the whole civil war; the talk of drunkards, the frankness of
+jesters, was alike reported to the government; nothing was safe; every
+opportunity of ferocious punishment was seized, and men no longer waited
+to hear the fate of accused persons, since it was always the same. One
+Paulus, of the Praetorian guard, was at an entertainment, wearing a
+portrait of Tiberius Caesar engraved in relief upon a gem. It would be
+absurd for me to beat about the bush for some delicate way of explaining
+that he took up a chamber-pot, an action which was at once noticed by
+Maro, one of the most notorious informers of that time, and the slave of
+the man who was about to fall into the trap, who drew the ring from the
+finger of his drunken master. When Maro called the guests to witness
+that Paulus had dishonoured the portrait of the emperor, and was already
+drawing up an act of accusation, the slave showed the ring upon his
+own finger. Such a man no more deserves to be called a slave, than Maro
+deserved to be called a guest.
+
+XXVII. In the reign of Augustus men's own words were not yet able to
+ruin them, yet they sometimes brought them into trouble. A senator named
+Rufus, while at dinner, expressed a hope that Caesar would not return
+safe from a journey for which he was preparing, and added that all bulls
+and calves wished the same thing. Some of those present carefully noted
+these words. At daybreak, the slave who had stood at his feet during the
+dinner, told him what he had said in his cups, and urged him to be the
+first to go to Caesar, and denounce himself. Rufus followed this advice,
+met Caesar as he was going down to the forum, and, swearing that he was
+out of his mind the day before, prayed that what he had said might fall
+upon his own head and that of his children; he then begged Caesar pardon
+him, and to take him back into favour. When Caesar said that he would
+do so, he added, "No one will believe that you have taken me back into
+favour unless you make me a present of something;" and he asked for and
+obtained a sum of money so large, that it would have been a gift not to
+be slighted even if bestowed by an unoffended prince. Caesar added: "In
+future I will take care never to quarrel with you, for my own sake."
+Caesar acted honourably in pardoning him, and in being liberal as well
+as forgiving; no one can hear this anecdote without praising Caesar,
+but he must praise the slave first. You need not wait for me to tell
+you that the slave who did his master this service was set free; yet his
+master did not do this for nothing, for Caesar had already paid him the
+price of the slave's liberty.
+
+XXVIII. After so many instances, can we doubt that a master may
+sometimes receive a benefit from a slave? Why need the person of the
+giver detract from the thing which he gives? why should not the gift add
+rather to the glory of the giver. All men descend from the same original
+stock; no one is better born than another, except in so far as his
+disposition is nobler and better suited for the performance of good
+actions. Those who display portraits of their ancestors in their halls,
+and set up in the entrance to their houses the pedigree of their family
+drawn out at length, with many complicated collateral branches, are they
+not notorious rather than noble? The universe is the one parent of all,
+whether they trace their descent from this primary source through a
+glorious or a mean line of ancestors. Be not deceived when men who are
+reckoning up their genealogy, wherever an illustrious name is wanting,
+foist in that of a god in its place. You need despise no one, even
+though he bears a commonplace name, and owes little to fortune. Whether
+your immediate ancestors were freedmen, or slaves, or foreigners, pluck
+up your spirits boldly, and leap over any intervening disgraces of your
+pedigree; at its source, a noble origin awaits you. Why should our
+pride inflate us to such a degree that we think it beneath us to receive
+benefits from slaves, and think only of their position, forgetting their
+good deeds? You, the slave of lust, of gluttony, of a harlot, nay, who
+are owned as a joint chattel by harlots, can you call anyone else
+a slave? Call a man a slave? why, I pray you, whither are you being
+hurried by those bearers who carry your litter? whither are these men
+with their smart military-looking cloaks carrying you? is it not to the
+door of some door-keeper, or to the gardens of some one who has not even
+a subordinate office? and then you, who regard the salute of another
+man's slave as a benefit, declare that you cannot receive a benefit from
+your own slave. What inconsistency is this? At the same time you despise
+and fawn upon slaves, you are haughty and violent at home, while out of
+doors you are meek, and as much despised as you despise your slaves;
+for none abase themselves lower than those who unconscionably give
+themselves airs, nor are anymore prepared to trample upon others than
+those who have learned how to offer insults by having endured them.
+
+XXIX. I felt it my duty to say this, in order to crush the arrogance of
+men who are themselves at the mercy of fortune, and to claim the right
+of bestowing a benefit for slaves, in order that I may claim it also for
+sons. The question arises, whether children can ever bestow upon their
+parents greater benefits than those which they have received from them.
+
+It is granted that many sons become greater and more powerful than their
+parents, and also that they are better men. If this be true, they may
+give better gifts to their fathers than they have received from them,
+seeing that their fortune and their good nature are alike greater than
+that of their father. "Whatever a father receives from his son," our
+opponent will urge, "must in any case be lees than what the son received
+from him, because the son owes to his father the very power of giving.
+Therefore the father can never be surpassed in the bestowal of benefits,
+because the benefit which surpasses his own is really his." I answer,
+that some things derive their first origin from others, yet are greater
+than those others; and a thing may be greater than that from which it
+took its rise, although without that thing to start from it never could
+have grown so great. All things greatly outgrow their beginnings. Seeds
+are the causes of all things, and yet are the smallest part of the
+things which they produce. Look at the Rhine, or the Euphrates, or any
+other famous rivers; how small they are, if you only view them at the
+place from whence they take their rise? they gain all that makes them
+terrible and renowned as they flow along. Look at the trees which are
+tallest if you consider their height, and the broadest if you look at
+their thickness and the spread of their branches; compared with all
+this, how small a part of them is contained in the slender fibres of
+the root? Yet take away their roots, and no more groves will arise, nor
+great mountains be clothed with trees. Temples and cities are supported
+by their foundations; yet what is built as the foundation of the entire
+building lies out of sight. So it is in other matters; the subsequent
+greatness of a thing ever eclipses its origin. I could never have
+obtained anything without having previously received the boon of
+existence from my parents; yet it does not follow from this that
+whatever I obtain is less than that without which I could not obtain it.
+If my nurse had not fed me when I was a child, I should not have been
+able to conduct any of those enterprises which I now carry on, both with
+my head and with my hand, nor should I ever have obtained the fame which
+is due to my labours both in peace and war; would you on that account
+argue that the services of a nurse were more valuable than the most
+important undertakings? Yet is not the nurse as important as the father,
+since without the benefits which I have received from each of them
+alike, I should have been alike unable to effect anything? If I owe all
+that I now can do to my original beginning, I cannot regard my father or
+my grandfather as being this original beginning; there always will be a
+spring further back, from which the spring next below is derived. Yet no
+one will argue that I owe more to unknown and forgotten ancestors
+than to my father; though really I do owe them more, if I owe it to my
+ancestors that my father begat me.
+
+XXX. "Whatever I have bestowed upon my father," says my opponent,
+"however great it may be, yet is less valuable than what my father has
+bestowed upon me, because if he had not begotten me, it never could
+have existed at all." By this mode of reasoning, if a man has healed
+my father when ill, and at the point of death, I shall not be able to
+bestow anything upon him equivalent to what I have received from him;
+for had my father not been healed, he could not have begotten me. Yet
+think whether it be not nearer the truth to regard all that I can do,
+and all that I have done, as mine, due to my own powers and my own will?
+Consider what the fact of my birth is in itself; you will see that it
+is a small matter, the outcome of which is dubious, and that it may lead
+equally to good or to evil; no doubt it is the first step to everything,
+but because it is the first, it is not on that account more important
+than all the others. Suppose that I have saved my father's life, raised
+him to the highest honours, and made him the chief man in his city,
+that I have not merely made him illustrious by my own deeds, but have
+furnished him himself with an opportunity of performing great exploits,
+which is at once important, easy, and safe, as well as glorious; that I
+have loaded him with appointments, wealth, and all that attracts men's
+minds; still, even when I surpass all others, I am inferior to him.
+Now if you say, "You owe to your father the power of doing all this," I
+shall answer, "Quite true, if to do all this it is only necessary to be
+born; but if life is merely an unimportant factor in the art of living
+well, and if you have bestowed upon me only that which I have in common
+with wild beasts and the smallest, and some of the foulest of creatures,
+do not claim for yourself what did not come into being in consequence of
+the benefits which you bestowed, even though it could not have come into
+being without them."
+
+XXXI. Suppose, father, that I have saved your life, in return for the
+life which I received from you: in this case also I have outdone your
+benefit, because I have given life to one who understands what I have
+done, and because I understood what I was doing, since I gave you your
+life not for the sake of, or by the means of my own pleasure; for just
+as it is less terrible to die before one has time to fear death, so it
+is a much greater boon to preserve one's life than to receive it. I have
+given life to one who will at once enjoy it, you gave it to one who knew
+not if he should ever live; I have given life to one who was in fear of
+death, your gift of life merely enables me to die; I have given you a
+life complete, perfect; you begat me without intelligence, a burden upon
+others. Do you wish to know how far from a benefit it was to give life
+under such conditions? You should have exposed me as a child, for you
+did me a wrong in begetting me. What do I gather from this? That the
+cohabitation of a father and mother is the very least of benefits to
+their child, unless in addition this beginning of kindnesses be followed
+up by others, and confirmed by other services. It is not a good thing
+to live, but to live well. "But," say you, "I do live well." True, but
+I might have lived ill; so that your part in me is merely this, that I
+live. If you claim merit to yourself for giving me mere life, bare and
+helpless, and boast of it as a great boon, reflect that this you claim
+merit for giving me is a boon which I possess in common with flies and
+worms. In the next place, if I say no more than that I have applied
+myself to honourable pursuits, and have guided the course of my life
+along the path of rectitude, then you have received more from your
+benefit than you gave; for you gave me to myself ignorant and unlearned,
+and I have returned to you a son such as you would wish to have
+begotten.
+
+XXXII. My father supported me. If I repay this kindness, I give him
+more than I received, because he has the pleasure, not only of being
+supported, but of being supported by a son, and receives more delight
+from my filial devotion than from the food itself, whereas the food
+which he used to give me merely affected my body. What? if any man
+rises so high as to become famous among nations for his eloquence, his
+justice, or his military skill, if much of the splendour of his renown
+is shed upon his father also, and by its clear light dispels the
+obscurity of his birth, does not such a man confer an inestimable
+benefit upon his parents? Would anyone have heard of Aristo and Gryllus
+except through Xenophon and Plato, their sons? Socrates keeps alive
+the memory of Sophroniscus. It would take long to recount the other
+men whose names survive for no other reason than that the admirable
+qualities of their sons have handed them down to posterity. Did the
+father of Marcus Agrippa, of whom nothing was known, even after Agrippa
+became famous, confer the greater benefit upon his son, or was that
+greater which Agrippa conferred upon his father when he gained the
+glory, unique in the annals of war, of a naval crown, and when he raised
+so many vast buildings in Rome, which not only surpassed all former
+grandeur, but have been surpassed by none since? Did Octavius confer a
+greater benefit upon his son, or the Emperor Augustus upon his father,
+obscured as he was by the intervention of an adoptive father? What joy
+would he have experienced, if, after the putting down of the civil war,
+he had seen his son ruling the state in peace and security? He would not
+have recognized the good which he had himself bestowed, and would hardly
+have believed, when he looked back upon himself, that so great a man
+could have been born in his house. Why should I go on to speak of others
+who would now be forgotten, if the glory of their sons had not raised
+them from obscurity, and kept them in the light until this day? In the
+next place, as we are not considering what son may have given back to
+his father greater benefits than he received from him, but whether a son
+can give back greater benefits, even if the examples which I have quoted
+are not sufficient, and such benefits do not outweigh the benefits
+bestowed by the parents, if no age has produced. an actual example,
+still it is not in the nature of things impossible. Though no solitary
+act can outweigh the deserts of a parent, yet many such acts combined by
+one son may do so.
+
+XXXIII. Scipio, while under seventeen years of age, rode among the enemy
+in battle, and saved his father's life. Was it not enough, that in order
+to reach his father he despised so many dangers when they were pressing
+hardest upon the greatest generals, that he, a novice in his first
+battle, made his way through so many obstacles, over the bodies of so
+many veteran soldiers, and showed strength and courage beyond his years?
+Add to this, that he also defended his father in court, and saved him
+from a plot of his powerful enemies, that he heaped upon him a second
+and a third consulship and other posts which were coveted even by
+consulars, that when his father was poor he bestowed upon him the
+plunder which he took by military licence, and that he made him rich
+with the spoils of the enemy, which is the greatest honour of a soldier.
+If even this did not repay his debt, add to it that he caused him to
+be constantly employed in the government of provinces and in special
+commands, add, that after he had destroyed the greatest cities,
+and became without a rival either in the east or in the west, the
+acknowledged protector and second founder of the Roman Empire, he
+bestowed upon one who was already of noble birth the higher title of
+"the father of Scipio;" can we doubt that the commonplace benefit of his
+birth was outdone by his exemplary conduct, and by the valour which was
+at once the glory and the protection of his country? Next, if this
+be not enough, suppose that a son were to rescue his father from the
+torture, or to undergo it in his stead. You can suppose the benefits
+returned by the son as great as you please, whereas the gift he received
+from his father was of one sort only, was easily performed, and was
+a pleasure to the giver; that he must necessarily have given the same
+thing to many others, even to some to whom he knows not that he has
+given it, that he had a partner in doing so, and that he had in view the
+law, patriotism, the rewards bestowed upon fathers of families by the
+state, the maintenance of his house and family: everything rather than
+him to whom he was giving life. What? supposing that any one were to
+learn philosophy and teach it to his father, could it be any longer
+disputed that the son had given him something greater than he had
+received from him, having returned to his father a happy life, whereas
+he had received from him merely life?
+
+XXXIV. "But," says our opponent, "whatever you do, whatever you are able
+to give to your father, is part of his benefit bestowed upon you." So
+it is the benefit of my teacher that I have become proficient in liberal
+studies; yet we pass on from those who taught them to us, at any rate
+from those who taught us the alphabet; and although no one can learn
+anything without them, yet it does not follow that whatsoever success
+one subsequently obtains, one is still inferior to those teachers. There
+is a great difference between the beginning of a thing and its final
+development; the beginning is not equal to the thing at its greatest,
+merely upon the ground that, without the beginning, it could never have
+become so great.
+
+XXXV. It is now time for me to bring forth something, so to speak, from
+my own mint. So long as there is something better than the benefit which
+a man bestows, he may be outdone. A father gives life to his son;
+there is something better than life; therefore a father may be outdone,
+because there is something better than the benefit which he has
+bestowed. Still further, he who has given any one his life, if he be
+more than once saved from peril of death by him, has received a greater
+benefit than he bestowed. Now, a father has given life to his son: if,
+therefore, he be more than once saved from peril by his son, he can
+receive a greater benefit than he gave. A benefit becomes greater to the
+receiver in proportion to his need of it. Now he who is alive needs life
+more than he who has not been born, seeing that such a one can have no
+need at all; consequently a father, if his life is saved by his son,
+receives a greater benefit than his son received from him by being born.
+It is said, "The benefits conferred by fathers cannot be outdone by
+those returned by their sons." Why? "Because the son received life from
+his father, and had he not received it, he could not have returned any
+benefits at all." A father has this in common with all those who have
+given any men their lives; it is impossible that these men could repay
+the debt if they had not received their life. Then I suppose one cannot
+overpay one's debt to a physician, for a physician gives life as well
+as a father; or to a sailor who has saved us when shipwrecked? Yet the
+benefits bestowed by these and by all the others who give us life in
+whatever fashion, can be outdone: consequently those of our fathers can
+be outdone. If any one bestows upon me a benefit which requires the help
+of benefits from many other persons, whereas I give him what requires no
+one to help it out, I have given more than I have received; now a father
+gave to his son a life which, without many accessories to preserve it,
+would perish; whereas a son, if he gives life to his father, gives him
+a life which requires no assistance to make it lasting; therefore the
+father who receives life from his son, receives a greater benefit than
+he himself bestowed upon his son.
+
+XXXVI. These considerations do not destroy the respect due to parents,
+or make their children behave worse to them, nay, better; for virtue
+is naturally ambitious, and wishes to outstrip those who are before it.
+Filial piety will be all the more eager, if, in returning a father's
+benefits, it can hope to outdo them; nor will this be against the will
+or the pleasure of the father, since in many contests it is to our
+advantage to be outdone. How does this contest become so desirable?
+How comes it to be such happiness to parents that they should confess
+themselves outdone by the benefits bestowed by their children? Unless we
+decide the matter thus, we give children an excuse, and make them less
+eager to repay their debt, whereas we ought to spur them on, saying,
+"Noble youths, give your attention to this! You are invited to contend
+in an honourable strife between parents and children, as to which party
+has received more than it has given. Your fathers have not necessarily
+won the day because they are first in the field: only take courage, as
+befits you, and do not give up the contest; you will conquer if you wish
+to do so. In this honourable warfare you will have no lack of leaders
+who will encourage you to perform deeds like their own, and bid you
+follow in their footsteps upon a path by which victory has often before
+now been won over parents."
+
+XXXVII. AEneas conquered his father in well doing, for he himself had
+been but a light and a safe burden for him when he was a child, yet he
+bore his father, when heavy with age, through the midst of the enemy's
+lines and the crash of the city which was falling around him, albeit the
+devout old man, who bore the sacred images and the household gods in
+his hands, pressed him with more than his own weight; nevertheless
+(what cannot filial piety accomplish!) AEneas bore him safe through the
+blazing city, and placed him in safety, to be worshipped as one of the
+founders of the Roman Empire. Those Sicilian youths outdid their parents
+whom they bore away safe, when Aetna, roused to unusual fury, poured
+fire over cities and fields throughout a great part of the island. It
+is believed that the fires parted, and that the flames retired on either
+side, so as to leave a passage for these youths to pass through, who
+certainly deserved to perform their daring task in safety. Antigonus
+outdid his father when, after having conquered the enemy in a great
+battle, he transferred the fruits of it to him, and handed over to him
+the empire of Cyprus. This is true kingship, to choose not to be a king
+when you might. Manlius conquered his father, imperious [Footnote:
+There is an allusion to the surname of both the father and the son,
+"Imperiosus" given them on account of their severity.] though he was,
+when, in spite of his having previously been banished for a time by his
+father on, account of his dulness and stupidity as a boy, he came to an
+interview which he had demanded with the tribune of the people, who
+had filed an action against his father. The tribune had granted him the
+interview, hoping that he would betray his hated father, and believed
+that he had earned the gratitude of the youth, having, amongst other
+matters, reproached old Manlius with sending him into exile, treating
+it as a very serious accusation; but the youth, having caught him alone,
+drew a sword which he had hidden in his robe, and said, "Unless you
+swear to give up your suit against my father, I will run you through
+with this sword. It is in your power to decide how my father shall be
+freed from his prosecutor." The tribune swore, and kept his oath; he
+related the reason of his abandonment of his action to an assembly at
+the Rostra. No other man was ever permitted to put down a tribune with
+impunity.
+
+XXXVIII. There are instances without number of men who have saved their
+parents from danger, have raised them from the lowest to the highest
+station, and, taking them from the nameless mass of the lower classes,
+have given them a name glorious throughout all ages. By no force of
+words, by no power of genius, can one rightly express how desirable, how
+admirable, how never to be erased from human memory it is to be able to
+say, "I obeyed my parents, I gave way to them, I was submissive to their
+authority whether it was just, or unjust and harsh; the only point in
+which I resisted them was, not to be conquered by them in benefits."
+Continue this struggle, I beg of you, and even though weary, yet re-form
+your ranks. Happy are they who conquer, happy they who are conquered.
+What can be more glorious than the youth who can say to himself--it
+would not be right to say it to another--"I have conquered my father
+with benefits"? What is more fortunate than that old man who declares
+everywhere to everyone that he has been conquered in benefits by
+his son? What, again, is more blissful than to be overcome in such a
+contest?
+
+
+
+
+BOOK IV.
+
+I.
+
+
+Of all the matters which we have discussed, Aebutius Liberalis, there is
+none more essential, or which, as Sallust says, ought to be stated with
+more care than that which is now before us: whether the bestowal of
+benefits and the return of gratitude for them are desirable objects
+in themselves. Some men are found who act honourably from commercial
+motives, and who do not care for unrewarded virtue, though it can confer
+no glory if it brings any profit. What can be more base than for a man
+to consider what it costs him to be a good man, when virtue neither
+allures by gain nor deters by loss, and is so far from bribing any one
+with hopes and promises, that on the other hand she bids them spend
+money upon herself, and often consists in voluntary gifts? We must go to
+her, trampling what is merely useful under our feet: whithersoever she
+may call us or send us we must go, without any regard for our private
+fortunes, sometimes without sparing even our own blood, nor must we
+ever refuse to obey any of her commands. "What shall I gain," says my
+opponent, "if I do this bravely and gratefully?" You will gain the doing
+of it--the deed itself is your gain. Nothing beyond this is promised. If
+any advantage chances to accrue to you, count it as something extra.
+The reward of honourable dealings lies in themselves. If honour is to be
+sought after for itself, since a benefit is honourable, it follows that
+because both of these are of the same nature, their conditions must also
+be the same. Now it has frequently and satisfactorily been proved, that
+honour ought to be sought after for itself alone.
+
+II. In this part of the subject we oppose the Epicureans, an effeminate
+and dreamy sect who philosophize in their own paradise, amongst whom
+virtue is the handmaid of pleasures, obeys them, is subject to them,
+and regards them as superior to itself. You say, "there is no pleasure
+without virtue." But wherefore is it superior to virtue? Do you imagine
+that the matter in dispute between them is merely one of precedence?
+Nay, it is virtue itself and its powers which are in question. It cannot
+be virtue if it can follow; the place of virtue is first, she ought to
+lead, to command, to stand in the highest rank; you bid her look for a
+cue to follow. "What," asks our opponent, "does that matter to you? I
+also declare that happiness is impossible without virtue. Without virtue
+I disapprove of and condemn the very pleasures which I pursue, and to
+which I have surrendered myself. The only matter in dispute is this,
+whether virtue be the cause of the highest good, or whether it be itself
+the highest good." Do you suppose, though this be the only point in
+question, that it is a mere matter of precedence? It is a confusion and
+obvious blindness to prefer the last to the first. I am not angry at
+virtue being placed below pleasure, but at her being mixed up at all
+with pleasure, which she despises, whose enemy she is, and from which
+she separates herself as far as possible, being more at home with labour
+and sorrow, which are manly troubles, than with your womanish good
+things.
+
+III. It was necessary to insert this argument, my Liberalis, because
+it is the part of virtue to bestow those benefits which we are now
+discussing, and it is most disgraceful to bestow benefits for any other
+purpose than that they should be free gifts. If we give with the hope of
+receiving a return, we should give to the richest men, not to the most
+deserving: whereas we prefer a virtuous poor man to an unmannerly rich
+one. That is not a benefit, which takes into consideration the fortune
+of the receiver. Moreover, if our only motive for benefiting others was
+our own advantage, those who could most easily distribute benefits, such
+as rich and powerful men, or kings, and persons who do not stand in need
+of the help of others, ought never to do so at all; the gods would
+not bestow upon us the countless blessings which they pour upon us
+unceasingly by night and by day, for their own nature suffices them in
+all respects, and renders them complete, safe, and beyond the reach of
+harm; they will, therefore, never bestow a benefit upon any one, if self
+and self interest be the only cause for the bestowal of benefits. To
+take thought, not where your benefit will be best bestowed, but where
+it may be most profitably placed at interest, from whence you will most
+easily get it back, is not bestowal of benefits, but usury. Now the gods
+have nothing to do with usury; it follows, therefore, that they cannot
+be liberal; for if the only reason for giving is the advantage of the
+giver, since God cannot hope to receive any advantages from us, there is
+no cause why God should give anything.
+
+IV. I know what answer may be made to this. "True; therefore God does
+not bestow benefits, but, free from care and unmindful of us, He
+turns away from our world and either does something else, or else does
+nothing, which Epicurus thought the greatest possible happiness, and
+He is not affected either by benefits or by injuries." The man who says
+this cannot surely hear the voices of worshippers, and of those who all
+around him are raising their hands to heaven and praying for the success
+both of their private affairs and those of the state; which certainly
+would not be the case, all men would not agree in this madness of
+appealing to deaf and helpless gods, unless we knew that their benefits
+are sometimes bestowed upon us unasked, sometimes in answer to our
+prayers, and that they give us both great and seasonable gifts, which
+shield us from the most terrible dangers. Who is there so poor, so
+uncared for, born to sorrow by so unkind a fate, as never to have felt
+the vast generosity of the Gods? Look even at those who complain and are
+discontented with their lot; you will find that they are not altogether
+without a share in the bounty of heaven, that there is no one upon whom
+something has not been shed from that most gracious fount. Is the gift
+which is bestowed upon all alike, at their birth, not enough? However
+unequally the blessings of after life may be dealt out to us, did nature
+give us too little when she gave us herself?
+
+V. It is said, "God does not bestow benefits." Whence, then, comes all
+that you possess, that you give or refuse to give, that you hoard or
+steal? whence come these innumerable delights of our eyes, our ears, and
+our minds? whence the plenty which provides us even with luxury--for it
+is not our bare necessities alone against which provision is made;
+we are loved so much as actually to be pampered--whence so many trees
+bearing various fruits, so many wholesome herbs, so many different sorts
+of food distributed throughout the year, so that even the slothful may
+find sustenance in the chance produce of the earth? Then, too, whence
+come the living creatures of all kinds, some inhabiting the dry land,
+others the waters, others alighting from the sky, that every part of
+nature may pay us some tribute; the rivers which encircle our meadows
+with most beauteous bends, the others which afford a passage to merchant
+fleets as they flow on, wide and navigable, some of which in summer
+time are subject to extraordinary overflowings in order that lands lying
+parched under a glowing sun may suddenly be watered by the rush of a
+midsummer torrent?
+
+What of the fountains of medicinal waters? What of the bursting forth of
+warm waters upon the seashore itself? Shall I
+
+  "Tell of the seas round Italy that flow,
+   Which laves her shore above, and which below;
+   Or of her lakes, unrivalled Larius, thee,
+   Or thee, Benacus, roaring like a sea?"
+
+VI. If any one gave you a few acres, you would say that you had received
+a benefit; can you deny that the boundless extent of the earth is a
+benefit? If any one gave you money, and filled your chest, since you
+think that so important, you would call that a benefit. God has buried
+countless mines in the earth, has poured out from the earth countless
+rivers, rolling sands of gold; He has concealed in every place huge
+masses of silver, copper and iron, and has bestowed upon you the means
+of discovering them, placing upon the surface of the earth signs of the
+treasures hidden below; and yet do you say that you have received
+no benefit? If a house were given you, bright with marble, its roof
+beautifully painted with colours and gilding, you would call it no small
+benefit. God has built for you a huge mansion that fears no fire or
+ruin, in which you see no flimsy veneers, thinner than the very saw with
+which they are cut, but vast blocks of most precious stone, all composed
+of those various and different substances whose paltriest fragments you
+admire so much; he has built a roof which glitters in one fashion by
+day, and in another by night; and yet do you say that you have received
+no benefit? When you so greatly prize what you possess, do you act the
+part of an ungrateful man, and think that there is no one to whom you
+are indebted for them? Whence comes the breath which you draw? the light
+by which you arrange and perform all the actions of your life? the blood
+by whose circulation your vital warmth is maintained? those meats
+which excite your palate by their delicate flavour after your hunger is
+appeased? those provocatives which rouse you when wearied with pleasure?
+that repose in which you are rotting and mouldering? Will you not, if
+you are grateful, say--
+
+  "'Tis to a god that this repose I owe,
+   For him I worship, as a god below.
+   Oft on his altar shall my firstlings bleed,
+   See, by his bounty here with rustic reed
+   I play the airs I love the livelong day,
+   The while my oxen round about me stray."
+
+The true God is he who has placed, not a few oxen, but all the herds on
+their pastures throughout the world; who furnishes food to the flocks
+wherever they wander; who has ordained the alternation of summer and
+winter pasturage, and has taught us not merely to play upon a reed, and
+to reduce to some order a rustic and artless song, but who has invented
+so many arts and varieties of voice, so many notes to make music,
+some with our own breath, some with instruments. You cannot call our
+inventions our own any more than you call our growth our own, or the
+various bodily functions which correspond to each stage of our lives; at
+one time comes the loss of childhood's teeth, at another, when our age
+is advancing and growing into robuster manhood, puberty and the last
+wisdom-tooth marks the end of our youth. "We have implanted in us the
+seeds of all ages, of all arts, and God our master brings forth our
+intellects from obscurity."
+
+VII. "Nature," says my opponent, "gives me all this." Do you not
+perceive when you say this that you merely speak of God under another
+name? for what is nature but God and divine reason, which pervades the
+universe and all its parts? You may address the author of our world
+by as many different titles as you please; you may rightly call him
+Jupiter, Best and Greatest, and the Thunderer, or the Stayer, so called,
+not because, as the historians tell us, he stayed the flight of the
+Roman army in answer to the prayer of Romulus, but because all things
+continue in their stay through his goodness. If you were to call this
+same personage Fate, you would not lie; for since fate is nothing more
+than a connected chain of causes, he is the first cause of all upon
+which all the rest depend. You will also be right in applying to him any
+names that you please which express supernatural strength and power: he
+may have as many titles as he has attributes.
+
+VIII. Our school regards him as Father Liber, and Hercules, and
+Mercurius: he is Father Liber because he is the parent of all, who first
+discovered the power of seed, and our being led by pleasure to plant it;
+he is Hercules, because his might is unconquered, and when it is wearied
+after completing its labours, will retire into fire; he is Mercurius,
+because in him is reasoning, and numbers, and system, and knowledge.
+Whither-soever you turn yourself you will see him meeting you:
+nothing is void of him, he himself fills his own work. Therefore, most
+ungrateful of mortals, it is in vain that you declare yourself indebted,
+not to God, but to nature, because there can be no God without nature,
+nor any nature without God; they are both the same thing, differing only
+in their functions. If you were to say that you owe to Annaeus or
+to Lucius what you received from Seneca, you would not change your
+creditor, but only his name, because he remains the same man whether you
+use his first, second, or third name. So whether you speak of nature,
+fate, or fortune, these are all names of the same God, using his power
+in different ways. So likewise justice, honesty, discretion, courage,
+frugality, are all the good qualities of one and the same mind; if you
+are pleased with any one of these, you are pleased with that mind.
+
+IX. However, not to drift aside into a distinct controversy, God bestows
+upon us very many and very great benefits without hope of receiving any
+return; since he does not require any offering from us, and we are
+not capable of bestowing anything upon him: wherefore, a benefit is
+desirable in itself. In it the advantage of the receiver is all that
+is taken into consideration: we study this without regarding our own
+interests. "Yet," argues our opponent, "you say that we ought to choose
+with care the persons upon whom we bestow benefits, because neither do
+husbandmen sow seed in the sand: now if this be true, we follow our own
+interest in bestowing benefits, just as much as in ploughing and sowing:
+for sowing is not desirable in itself. Besides this you inquire where
+and how you ought to bestow a benefit, which would not need to be
+done if the bestowal of a benefit was desirable in itself: because in
+whatever place and whatever manner it might be bestowed, it still would
+be a benefit." We seek to do honourable acts, solely because they are
+honourable; yet even though we need think of nothing else, we consider
+to whom we shall do them, and when, and how; for in these points the act
+has its being. In like manner, when I choose upon whom I shall bestow
+a benefit, and when I aim at making it a benefit; because if it were
+bestowed upon a base person, it could neither be a benefit nor an
+honourable action.
+
+X. To restore what has been entrusted to one is desirable in itself; yet
+I shall not always restore it, nor shall I do so in any place or at any
+time you please. Sometimes it makes no difference whether I deny that I
+have received it, or return it openly. I shall consider the interests
+of the person to whom I am to return it, and shall deny that I have
+received a deposit, which would injure him if returned. I shall act in
+the same manner in bestowing a benefit: I shall consider when to give
+it, to whom, in what manner, and on what grounds. Nothing ought to be
+done without a reason: a benefit is not truly so, if it be bestowed
+without a reason, since reason accompanies all honorable action. How
+often do we hear men reproaching themselves for some thoughtless gift,
+and saying, "I had rather have thrown it away than have given it to
+him!" What is thoughtlessly given away is lost in the most discreditable
+manner, and it is much worse to have bestowed a benefit badly than to
+have received no return for it; that we receive no return is the fault
+of another; that we did not choose upon whom we should bestow it, is our
+own. In choosing a fit person, I shall not, as you expect, pay the
+least attention to whether I am likely to get any return from him, for
+I choose one who will be grateful, not one who will return my goodness,
+and it often happens that the man who makes no return is grateful, while
+he who returns a benefit is ungrateful for it. I value men by their
+hearts alone, and, therefore, I shall pass over a rich man if he be
+unworthy, and give to a good man though he be poor; for he will be
+grateful however destitute he may be, since whatever he may lose, his
+heart will still be left him.
+
+XI. I do not fish for gain, for pleasure, or for credit, by bestowing
+benefits: satisfied in doing so with pleasing one man alone, I shall
+give in order to do my duty. Duty, however, leaves one some choice; do
+you ask me, how I am to choose? I shall choose an honest, plain, man,
+with a good memory, and grateful for kindness; one who keeps his hands
+off other men's goods, yet does not greedily hold to his own, and who is
+kind to others; when I have chosen such a man, I shall have acted to my
+mind, although fortune may have bestowed upon him no means of returning
+my kindness. If my own advantage and mean calculation made me liberal,
+if I did no one any service except in order that he might in turn do a
+service to me, I should never bestow a benefit upon one who was setting
+out for distant and foreign countries, never to return; I should not
+bestow a benefit upon one who was so ill as to be past hope of recovery,
+nor should I do so when I myself was failing, because I should not live
+long enough to receive any return. Yet, that you may know that to do
+good is desirable in itself, we afford help to strangers who put into
+our harbour only to leave it straightway; we give a ship and fit it out
+for a shipwrecked stranger to sail back in to his own country. He leaves
+us hardly knowing who it was who saved him, and, as he will never return
+to our presence, he hands over his debt of gratitude to the gods, and
+beseeches them to fulfil it for him: in the meanwhile we rejoice in the
+barren knowledge that we have done a good action. What? when we stand
+upon the extreme verge of life, and make our wills, do we not assign to
+others benefits from which we ourselves shall receive no advantage? How
+much time we waste, how long we consider in secret how much property we
+are to leave, and to whom! What then? does it make any difference to us
+to whom we leave our property, seeing that we cannot expect any return
+from any one? Yet we never give anything with more care, we never take
+such pains in deciding upon our verdict, as when, without any views of
+personal advantage, we think only of what is honourable, for we are bad
+judges of our duty as long as our view of it is distorted by hope and
+fear, and that most indolent of vices, pleasure: but when death has shut
+off all these, and brought us as incorrupt judges to pronounce sentence,
+we seek for the most worthy men to leave our property to, and we never
+take more scrupulous care than in deciding what is to be done with what
+does not concern us. Yet, by Hercules, then there steals over us a
+great satisfaction as we think, "I shall make this man richer, and by
+bestowing wealth upon that man I shall add lustre to his high position."
+Indeed, if we never give without expecting some return, we must all die
+without making our wills.
+
+XII. It may be said, "You define a benefit as a loan which cannot be
+repaid: now a loan is not a desirable thing in itself." When we speak of
+a loan, we make use of a figure, or comparison, just as we speak of law
+as; the standard of right and wrong, although a standard is not a thing
+to be desired for its own sake. I have adopted this phrase in order to
+illustrate my subject: when I speak of a loan, I must be understood to
+mean something resembling a loan. Do you wish to know how it differs
+from one? I add the words "which cannot be repaid," whereas every loan
+both can and ought to be repaid. It is so far from being right to bestow
+a benefit for one's own advantage, that often, as I have explained, it
+is one's duty to bestow it when it involves one's own loss and risk: for
+instance, if I assist a man when beset by robbers, so that he gets away
+from them safely, or help some victim of power, and bring upon myself
+the party spite of a body of influential men, very, probably incurring
+myself the same disgrace from which I saved him, although I might have
+taken the other side, and looked on with safety at struggles with
+which I have nothing to do: if I were to give bail for one who has been
+condemned, and when my friend's goods were advertised for sale I were
+to give a bond to the effect that I would make restitution to the
+creditors, if, in order to save a proscribed person I myself run the
+risk of being proscribed. No one, when about to buy a villa at Tusculum
+or Tibur, for a summer retreat, because of the health of the locality,
+considers how many years' purchase he gives for it; this must be looked
+to by the man who makes a profit by it. The same is true with benefits;
+when you ask what return I get for them, I answer, the consciousness
+of a good action. "What return does one get for benefits?" Pray tell
+me what return one gets for righteousness, innocence, magnanimity,
+chastity, temperance? If you wish for anything beyond these virtues, you
+do not wish for the virtues themselves. For what does the order of the
+universe bring round the seasons? for what does the sun make the day
+now longer and now shorter? all these things are benefits, for they take
+place for our good. As it is the duty of the universe to maintain the
+round of the seasons, as it is the duty of the sun to vary the points of
+his rising and setting, and to do all these things by which we profit,
+without any reward, so is it the duty of man, amongst other things, to
+bestow benefits. Wherefore then does he give? He gives for fear that
+he should not give, lest he might lose an opportunity of doing a good
+action.
+
+XIII. You Epicureans take pleasure in making a study of dull torpidity,
+in seeking for a repose which differs little from sound sleep, in
+lurking beneath the thickest shade, in amusing with the feeblest
+possible trains of thought that sluggish condition of your languid minds
+which you term tranquil contemplation, and in stuffing with food and
+drink, in the recesses of your gardens, your bodies which are pallid
+with want of exercise; we Stoics, on the other hand, take pleasure in
+bestowing benefits, even though they cost us labour, provided that they
+lighten the labours of others; though they lead us into danger, provided
+that they save others, though they straiten our means, if they alleviate
+the poverty and distresses of others. What difference does it make to me
+whether I receive benefits or not? even if I receive them, it is still
+my duty to bestow them. A benefit has in view the advantage of him
+upon whom we bestow it, not our own; otherwise we merely bestow it upon
+ourselves. Many things, therefore, which are of the greatest possible
+use to others lose all claim to gratitude by being paid for. Merchants
+are of use to cities, physicians to invalids, dealers to slaves; yet all
+these have no claim to the gratitude of those whom they benefit, because
+they seek their own advantage through that of others. That which is
+bestowed with a view to profit is not a benefit. "I will give this in
+order that I may get a return for it" is the language of a broker.
+
+XIV. I should not call a woman modest, if she rebuffed her lover in
+order to increase his passion, or because she feared the law or her
+husband; as Ovid says:
+
+  "She that denies, because she does not dare
+   To yield, in spirit grants her lover's prayer."
+
+Indeed, the woman who owes her chastity, not to her own virtue, but to
+fear, may rightly be classed as a sinner. In the same manner, he who
+merely gave in order that he might receive, cannot be said to have
+given. Pray, do we bestow benefits upon animals when we feed them for
+our use or for our table? do we bestow benefits upon trees when we tend
+them that they may not suffer from drought or from hardness of ground?
+No one is moved by righteousness and goodness of heart to cultivate an
+estate, or to do any act in which the reward is something apart from the
+act itself; but he is moved to bestow benefits, not by low and grasping
+motives, but by a kind and generous mind, which even after it has given
+is willing to give again, to renew its former bounties by fresh ones,
+which thinks only of how much good it can do the man to whom it gives;
+whereas to do any one a service because it is our interest to do so is a
+mean action, which deserves no praise, no credit. What grandeur is there
+in loving oneself, sparing oneself, gaining profit for oneself? The true
+love of giving calls us away from all this, forcibly leads us to put up
+with loss, and foregoes its own interest, deriving its greatest pleasure
+from the mere act of doing good.
+
+XV. Can we doubt that the converse of a benefit is an injury? As the
+infliction of injuries is a thing to be avoided, so is the bestowal of
+benefits to be desired for its own sake. In the former, the disgrace of
+crime outweighs all the advantages which incite us to commit it; while
+we are urged to the latter course by the appearance of honour, in itself
+a powerful incentive to action, which attends it.
+
+I should not lie if I were to affirm that every one takes pleasure in
+the benefits which he has bestowed, that everyone loves best to see the
+man whom he has most largely benefited. Who does not thinks that to have
+bestowed one benefit is a reason for bestowing a second? and would this
+be so, if the act of giving did not itself give us pleasure? How often
+you may hear a man say, "I cannot bear to desert one whose life I have
+preserved, whom I have saved from danger. True, he asks me to plead his
+cause against men of great influence. I do not wish to do so, yet what
+am I to do? I have already helped him once, nay twice." Do you not
+perceive how very powerful this instinct must be, if it leads us to
+bestow benefits first because it is right to do so, and afterwards
+because we have already bestowed somewhat? Though at the outset a man
+may have had no claim upon us, we yet continue to give to him because we
+have already given to him. So untrue is it that we are urged to bestow
+benefits by our own interest, that even when our benefits prove failures
+we continue to nurse them and encourage them out of sheer love of
+benefiting, which has a natural weakness even for what has been
+ill-bestowed, like that which we feel for our vicious children.
+
+XVI. These same adversaries of ours admit that they are grateful, yet
+not because it is honourable, but because it is profitable to be so.
+This can be proved to be untrue all the more easily, because it can be
+established by the same arguments by which we have established that to
+bestow a benefit is desirable for its own sake. All our arguments start
+from this settled point, that honour is pursued for no reason except
+because it is honour. Now, who will venture to raise the question
+whether it be honourable to be grateful? who does not loathe the
+ungrateful man, useless as he is even to himself? How do you feel when
+any one is spoken of as being ungrateful for great benefits conferred
+upon him by a friend? Is it as though he had done something base, or had
+merely neglected to do something useful and likely to be profitable to
+himself? I imagine that you think him a bad man, and one who deserves
+punishment, not one who needs a guardian; and this would not be the
+case, unless gratitude were desirable in itself and honourable. Other
+qualities, it may be, manifest their importance less clearly, and
+require an explanation to prove whether they be honourable or no; this
+is openly proved to be so in the sight of all, and is too beautiful for
+anything to obscure or dim its glory. What is more praiseworthy, upon
+what are all men more universally agreed, than to return gratitude for
+good offices?
+
+XVII. Pray tell me, what is it that urges us to do so? Is it profit?
+Why, unless a man despises profit, he is not grateful. Is it ambition?
+why, what is there to boast of in having paid what you owe? Is it
+fear? The ungrateful man feels none, for against this one crime we
+have provided no law, as though nature had taken sufficient precautions
+against it. Just as there is no law which bids parents love and indulge
+their children, seeing that it is superfluous to force us into the
+path which we naturally take, just as no one needs to be urged to love
+himself, since self-love begins to act upon him as soon as he is born,
+so there is no law bidding us to seek that which is honourable
+in itself; for such things please us by their very nature, and so
+attractive is virtue that the disposition even of bad men leads them to
+approve of good rather than of evil. Who is there who does not wish
+to appear beneficent, who does not even when steeped in crime and
+wrong-doing strive after the appearance of goodness, does not put some
+show of justice upon even his most intemperate acts, and endeavour to
+seem to have conferred a benefit even upon those whom he has injured?
+Consequently, men allow themselves to be thanked by those whom they have
+ruined, and pretend to be good and generous, because they cannot prove
+themselves so; and this they never would do were it not that a love
+of honour for its own sake forces them to seek a reputation quite at
+variance with their real character, and to conceal their baseness, a
+quality whose fruits we covet, though we regard it itself with dislike
+and shame. No one has ever so far rebelled against the laws of nature
+and put off human feeling as to act basely for mere amusement. Ask any
+of those who live by robbery whether he would not rather obtain what
+he steals and plunders by honest means; the man whose trade is highway
+robbery and the murder of travellers would rather find his booty than
+take it by force; you will find no one who would not prefer to enjoy the
+fruits of wickedness without acting wickedly. Nature bestows upon us all
+this immense advantage, that the light of virtue shines into the minds
+of all alike; even those who do not follow her, behold her.
+
+XVIII. A proof that gratitude is desirable for itself lies in the fact
+that ingratitude is to be avoided for itself, because no vice more
+powerfully rends asunder and destroys the union of the human race.
+To what do we trust for safety, if not in mutual good offices one to
+another? It is by the interchange of benefits alone that we gain some
+measure of protection for our lives, and of safety against sudden
+disasters. Taken singly, what should we be? a prey and quarry for wild
+beasts, a luscious and easy banquet; for while all other animals have
+sufficient strength to protect themselves, and those which are born to a
+wandering solitary life are armed, man is covered by a soft skin, has no
+powerful teeth or claws with which to terrify other creatures, but weak
+and naked by himself is made strong by union.
+
+God has bestowed upon him two gifts, reason and union, which raise him
+from weakness to the highest power; and so he, who if taken alone would
+be inferior to every other creature, possesses supreme dominion. Union
+has given him sovereignty over all animals; union has enabled a being
+born upon the earth to assume power over a foreign element, and bids him
+be lord of the sea also; it is union which has checked the inroads of
+disease, provided supports for our old age, and given us relief from
+pain; it is union which makes us strong, and to which we look for
+protection against the caprices of fortune. Take away union, and you
+will rend asunder the association by which the human race preserves
+its existence; yet you will take it away if you succeed in proving that
+ingratitude is not to be avoided for itself, but because something is
+to be feared for it; for how many are there who can with safety be
+ungrateful? In fine, I call every man ungrateful who is merely made
+grateful by fear.
+
+XIX. No sane man fears the gods; for it is madness to fear what is
+beneficial, and no man loves those whom he fears. You, Epicurus, ended
+by making God unarmed; you stripped him of all weapons, of all power,
+and, lest anyone should fear him, you banished him out of the world.
+There is no reason why you should fear this being, cut off as he is, and
+separated from the sight and touch of mortals by a vast and impassable
+wall; he has no power either of rewarding or of injuring us; he dwells
+alone half-way between our heaven and that of another world, without the
+society either of animals, of men, or of matter, avoiding the crash of
+worlds as they fall in ruins above and around him, but neither hearing
+our prayers nor interested in us. Yet you wish to seem to worship this
+being just as a father, with a mind, I suppose, full of gratitude; or,
+if you do not wish to seem grateful, why should you worship him, since
+you have received no benefit from him, but have been put together
+entirely at random and by chance by those atoms and mites of yours?
+"I worship him," you answer, "because of his glorious majesty and his
+unique nature." Granting that you do this, you clearly do it without
+the attraction of any reward, or any hope; there is therefore something
+which is desirable for itself, whose own worth attracts you, that
+is, honour. Now what is more honourable than gratitude? the means of
+practising this virtue are as extensive as life itself.
+
+XX. "Yet," argues he, "there is also a certain amount of profit inherent
+in this virtue." In what virtue is there not? But that which we speak
+of as desirable for itself is such, that although it may possess some
+attendant advantages, yet it would be desirable even if stripped of
+all these. It is profitable to be grateful; yet I will be grateful even
+though it harm me. What is the aim of the grateful man? is it that his
+gratitude may win for him more friends and more benefits? What then? If
+a man is likely to meet with affronts by showing his gratitude, if he
+knows that far from gaining anything by it, he must lose much even of
+what he has already acquired, will he not cheerfully act to his own
+disadvantage? That man is ungrateful who, in returning a kindness,
+looks forward to a second gift--who hopes while he repays. I call him
+ungrateful who sits at the bedside of a sick man because he is about
+to make a will, when he is at leisure to think of inheritances and
+legacies. Though he may do everything which a good and dutiful friend
+ought to do, yet, if any hope of gain be floating in his mind, he is a
+mere legacy-hunter, and is angling for an inheritance. Like the birds
+which feed upon carcases, which come close to animals weakened by
+disease, and watch till they fall, so these men are attracted by death
+and hover around a corpse.
+
+XXI. A grateful mind is attracted only by a sense of the beauty of its
+purpose. Do you wish to know this to be so, and that it is not bribed by
+ideas of profit? There are two classes of grateful men: a man is called
+grateful who has made some return for what he received; this man may
+very possibly display himself in this character, he has something
+to boast of, to refer to. We also call a man grateful who receives a
+benefit with goodwill, and owes it to his benefactor with goodwill; yet
+this man's gratitude lies concealed within his own mind. What profit can
+accrue to him from this latent feeling? yet this man, even though he
+is not able to do anything more than this, is grateful; he loves his
+benefactor, he feels his debt to him, he longs to repay his kindness;
+whatever else you may find wanting, there is nothing wanting in the man.
+He is like a workman who has not the tools necessary for the practice of
+his craft, or like a trained singer whose voice cannot be heard through
+the noise of those who interrupt him. I wish to repay a kindness: after
+this there still remains something for me to do, not in order that I may
+become grateful, but that I may discharge my debt; for, in many cases,
+he who returns a kindness is ungrateful for it, and he who does not
+return it is grateful. Like all other virtues, the whole value of
+gratitude lies in the spirit in which it is done; so, if this man's
+purpose be loyal, any shortcomings on his part are due not to himself,
+but to fortune. A man who is silent may, nevertheless, be eloquent; his
+hands may be folded or even bound, and he may yet be strong; just as
+a pilot is a pilot even when upon dry land, because his knowledge
+is complete, and there is nothing wanting to it, though there may be
+obstacles which prevent his making use of it. In the same way, a man is
+grateful who only wishes to be so, and who has no one but himself who
+can bear witness to his frame of mind. I will go even further than
+this: a man sometimes is grateful when he appears to be ungrateful, when
+ill-judging report has declared him to be so. Such a man can look
+to nothing but his own conscience, which can please him even when
+overwhelmed by calumny, which contradicts the mob and common rumour,
+relies only upon itself, and though it beholds a vast crowd of the other
+way of thinking opposed to it, does not count heads, but wins by its own
+vote alone. Should it see its own good faith meet with the punishment
+due to treachery, it will not descend from its pedestal, and will remain
+superior to its punishment. "I have," it says, "what I wished, what I
+strove for. I do not regret it, nor shall I do so; nor shall fortune,
+however unjust she may be, ever hear me say, 'What did I want? What now
+is the use of having meant well?'" A good conscience is of value on
+the rack, or in the fire; though fire be applied to each of our limbs,
+gradually encircle our living bodies, and burst our heart, yet if our
+heart be filled with a good conscience, it will rejoice in the fire
+which will make its good faith shine before the world.
+
+XXII. Now let that question also which has been already stated be again
+brought forward; Why is it that we should wish to be grateful when we
+are dying, that we should carefully weigh the various services rendered
+us by different individuals, and carefully review our whole life, that
+we may not seem to have forgotten any kindness? Nothing then remains for
+us to hope for; yet when on the very threshold, we wish to depart
+from human life as full of gratitude as possible. There is in truth an
+immense reward for this thing merely in doing it, and what is honourable
+has great power to attract men's minds, which are overwhelmed by its
+beauty and carried off their balance, enchanted by its brilliancy and
+splendour. "Yet," argues our adversary, "from it many advantages take
+their rise, and good men obtain a safer life and love, and the good
+opinion of the better class, while their days are spent in greater
+security when accompanied by innocence and gratitude."
+
+Indeed, nature would have been most unjust had she rendered this great
+blessing miserable, uncertain, and fruitless. But consider this point,
+whether you would make your way to that virtue, to which it is generally
+safe and easy to attain, even though the path lay over rocks and
+precipices, and were beset with fierce beasts and venomous serpents. A
+virtue is none the less to be desired for its own sake, because it has
+some adventitious profit connected with it: indeed, in most cases the
+noblest virtues are accompanied by many extraneous advantages, but it is
+the virtues that lead the way, and these merely follow in their train.
+
+XXIII. Can we doubt that the climate of this abode of the human race is
+regulated by the motion of the sun and moon in their orbits? that
+our bodies are sustained, the hard earth loosened, excessive moisture
+reduced, and the surly bonds of winter broken by the heat of the one,
+and that crops are brought to ripeness by the effectual all-pervading
+warmth of the other? that the fertility of the human race corresponds
+to the courses of the moon? that the sun by its revolution marks out
+the year, and that the moon, moving in a smaller orbit, marks out the
+months? Yet, setting aside all this, would not the sun be a sight worthy
+to be contemplated and worshipped, if he did no more than rise and set?
+would not the moon be worth looking at, even if it passed uselessly
+through the heavens? Whose attention is not arrested by the universe
+itself, when by night it pours forth its fires and glitters with
+innumerable stars? Who, while he admires them, thinks of their being of
+use to him? Look at that great company gliding over our heads, how they
+conceal their swift motion under the semblance of a fixed and immovable
+work. How much takes place in that night which you make use of merely
+to mark and count your days! What a mass of events is being prepared in
+that silence! What a chain of destiny their unerring path is forming!
+Those which you imagine to be merely strewn about for ornament are
+really one and all at work. Nor is there any ground for your belief that
+only seven stars revolve, and that the rest remain still: we understand
+the orbits of a few, but countless divinities, further removed from
+our sight, come and go; while the greater part of those whom our sight
+reaches move in a mysterious manner and by an unknown path.
+
+XXIV. What then? would you not be captivated by the sight of such a
+stupendous work, even though it did not cover you, protect you, cherish
+you, bring you into existence and penetrate you with its spirit? Though
+these heavenly bodies are of the very first importance to us, and are,
+indeed, essential to our life, yet we can think of nothing but
+their glorious majesty, and similarly all virtue, especially that of
+gratitude, though it confers great advantages upon us, does not wish to
+be loved for that reason; it has something more in it than this, and he
+who merely reckons it among useful things does not perfectly comprehend
+it. A man, you say, is grateful because it is to his advantage to be
+so. If this be the case, then his advantage will be the measure of his
+gratitude. Virtue will not admit a covetous lover; men must approach her
+with open purse. The ungrateful man thinks, "I did wish to be grateful,
+but I fear the expense and danger and insults to which I should expose
+myself: I will rather consult my own interest." Men cannot be rendered
+grateful and ungrateful by the same line of reasoning: their actions
+are as distinct as their purposes. The one is ungrateful, although it is
+wrong, because it is his interest; the other is grateful, although it is
+not his interest, because it is right.
+
+XXV. It is our aim to live in harmony with the scheme of the universe,
+and to follow the example of the gods. Yet in all their acts the gods
+have no object in view other than the act itself, unless you suppose
+that they obtain a reward for their work in the smoke of burnt
+sacrifices and the scent of incense. See what great things they do every
+day, how much they divide amongst us, with how great crops they fill the
+earth, how they move the seas with convenient winds to carry us to all
+shores, how by the fall of sudden showers they soften the ground, renew
+the dried-up springs of fountains, and call them into new life by
+unseen supplies of water. All this they do without reward, without any
+advantage accruing to themselves. Let our line of conduct, if it would
+not depart from its model, preserve this direction, and let us not act
+honourably because we are hired to do so. We ought to feel ashamed that
+any benefit should have a price: we pay nothing for the gods.
+
+XXVI. "If," our adversary may say, "you wish to imitate the gods, then
+bestow benefits upon the ungrateful as well as the grateful; for the
+sun rises upon the wicked as well as the good, the seas are open even
+to pirates." By this question he really asks whether a good man
+would bestow a benefit upon an ungrateful person, knowing him to be
+ungrateful. Allow me here to introduce a short explanation, that we may
+not be taken in by a deceitful question. Understand that according to
+the system of the Stoics there are two classes of ungrateful persons.
+One man is ungrateful because he is a fool; a fool is a bad man; a man
+who is bad possesses every vice: therefore he is ungrateful. In the same
+way we speak of all bad men as dissolute, avaricious, luxurious, and
+spiteful, not because each man has all these vices in any great or
+remarkable degree, but because he might have them; they are in him, even
+though they be not seen. The second form of ungrateful person is he who
+is commonly meant by the term, one who is inclined by nature to this
+vice. In the case of him who has the vice of ingratitude just as he has
+every other, a wise man will bestow a benefit, because if he sets aside
+all such men there will be no one left for him to bestow it on. As for
+the ungrateful man who habitually misapplies benefits and acts so by
+choice, he will no more bestow a benefit upon him than he would lend
+money to a spendthrift, or place a deposit in the hands of one who had
+already often refused to many persons to give up the property with which
+they had entrusted him.
+
+XXVII. We call some men timid because they are fools: in this they
+are like the bad men who are steeped in all vices without distinction.
+Strictly speaking, we call those persons timid who are alarmed even
+at unmeaning noises. A fool possesses all vices, but he is not equally
+inclined by nature to all; one is prone to avarice, another to luxury,
+and another to insolence. Those persons, therefore, are mistaken, who
+ask the Stoics, "What do you say, then? is Achilles timid? Aristides,
+who received a name for justice, is he unjust? Fabius, who 'by delays
+retrieved the day,' is he rash? Does Decius fear death? Is Mucius
+a traitor? Camillus a betrayer?" We do not mean that all vices are
+inherent in all men in the same way in which some especial ones are
+noticeable in certain men, but we declare that the bad man and the fool
+possess all vices; we do not even acquit them of fear when they are
+rash, or of avarice when they are extravagant. Just as a man has all his
+senses, yet all men have not on that account as keen a sight as Lynceus,
+so a man that is a fool has not all vices in so active and vigorous a
+form as some persons have spine of them, yet he has them all. All vices
+exist in all of them, yet all are not prominent in each individual. One
+man is naturally prone to avarice, another is the slave of wine, a third
+of lust; or, if not yet enslaved by these passions, he is so fashioned
+by nature that this is the direction in which his character would
+probably lead him. Therefore, to return to my original proposition,
+every bad man is ungrateful, because he has the seeds of every villainy
+in him; but he alone is rightly so called who is naturally inclined to
+this vice. Upon such a person as this, therefore, I shall not bestow a
+benefit. One who betrothed his daughter to an ill-tempered man from whom
+many women had sought a divorce, would be held to have neglected her
+interests; a man would be thought a bad father if he entrusted the care
+of his patrimony to one who had lost his own family estate, and it would
+be the act of a madman to make a will naming as the guardian of one's
+son a man who had already defrauded other wards. So will that man be
+said to bestow benefits as badly as possible, who chooses ungrateful
+persons, in whose hands they will perish.
+
+XXVIII. "The gods," it may be said, "bestow much, even upon the
+ungrateful." But what they bestow they had prepared for the good, and
+the bad have their share as well, because they cannot be separated. It
+is better to benefit the bad as well, for the sake of benefiting the
+good, than to stint the good for fear of benefiting the bad. Therefore
+the gods have created all that you speak of, the day, the sun, the
+alternations of winter and summer, the transitions through spring and
+autumn from one extreme to the other, showers, drinking fountains, and
+regularly blowing winds for the use of all alike; they could not except
+individuals from the enjoyment of them. A king bestows honours upon
+those who deserve them, but he gives largesse to the undeserving as
+well. The thief, the bearer of false witness, and the adulterer, alike
+receive the public grant of corn, and all are placed on the register
+without any examination as to character; good and bad men share alike in
+all the other privileges which a man receives, because he is a citizen,
+not because he is a good man. God likewise has bestowed certain gifts
+upon the entire human race, from which no one is shut out. Indeed, it
+could not be arranged that the wind which was fair for good men should
+be foul for bad ones, while it is for the good of all men that the seas
+should be open for traffic and the kingdom of mankind be enlarged; nor
+could any law be appointed for the showers, so that they should not fall
+upon the fields of wicked and evil men. Some things are given to all
+alike: cities are founded for good and bad men alike; works of genius
+reach, by publication, even unworthy men; medicine points out the
+means of health even to the wicked; no one has checked the making up of
+wholesome remedies for fear that the undeserving should be healed. You
+must seek for examination and preference of individuals in such things
+as are bestowed separately upon those who are thought to deserve them;
+not in these, which admit the mob to share them without distinction.
+There is a great difference between not shutting a man out and choosing
+him. Even a thief receives justice; even murderers enjoy the blessings
+of peace; even those who have plundered others can recover their own
+property; assassins and private bravoes are defended against the common
+enemy by the city wall; the laws protect even those who have sinned most
+deeply against them. There are some things which no man could obtain
+unless they were given to all; you need not, therefore, cavil about
+those matters in which all mankind is invited to share. As for things
+which men receive or not at my discretion, I shall not bestow them upon
+one whom I know to be ungrateful.
+
+XXIX. "Shall we, then," argues he, "not give our advice to an ungrateful
+man when he is at a loss, or refuse him a drink of water when he is
+thirsty, or not show him the path when he has lost his way? or would you
+do him these services and yet not give him anything?" Here I will draw
+a distinction, or at any rate endeavour to do so. A benefit is a useful
+service, yet all useful service is not a benefit; for some are so
+trifling as not to claim the title of benefits. To produce a benefit two
+conditions must concur. First, the importance of the thing given; for
+some things fall short of the dignity of a benefit. Who ever called a
+hunch of bread a benefit, or a farthing dole tossed to a beggar, or the
+means of lighting a fire? yet sometimes these are of more value than the
+most costly benefits; still their cheapness detracts from their value
+even when, by the exigency of time, they are rendered essential. The
+next condition, which is the most important of all, must necessarily be
+present, namely, that I should confer the benefit for the sake of him
+whom I wish to receive it, that I should judge him worthy of it, bestow
+it of my own free will, and receive pleasure from my own gift, none
+of which conditions are present in the cases of which we have just now
+spoken; for we do not bestow such things as those upon these who are
+worthy of them, but we give them carelessly, as trifles, and do not give
+them so much to a man as to humanity.
+
+XXX. I shall not deny that sometimes I would give even to the unworthy,
+out of respect for others; as, for instance, in competition for public
+offices, some of the basest of men are preferred on account of their
+noble birth, to industrious men of no family, and that for good reasons;
+for the memory of great virtues is sacred, and more men will take
+pleasure in being good, if the respect felt for good men does not cease
+with their lives. What made Cicero's son a consul, except his father?
+What lately brought Cinna [Footnote: See Seneca on "Clemency," book i.,
+ch. ix.] out of the camp of the enemy and raised him to the consulate?
+What made Sextus Pompeius and the other Pompeii consuls, unless it was
+the greatness of one man, who once was raised so high that, by his very
+fall, he sufficiently exalted all his relatives. What lately made Fabius
+Persicus a member of more than one college of priests, though even
+profligates avoided his kiss? Was it not Verrucosus, and Allobrogicus,
+and the three hundred who to serve their country blocked the invader's
+path with the force of a single family? It is our duty to respect the
+virtuous, not only when present with us, but also when removed from our
+sight: as they have made it their study not to bestow their benefits
+upon one age alone, but to leave them existing after they themselves
+have passed away, so let us not confine our gratitude to a single
+age. If a man has begotten great men, he deserves to receive benefits,
+whatever he himself may be: he has given us worthy men. If a man
+descends from glorious ancestors, whatever he himself may be, let him
+find refuge under the shadow of his ancestry. As mean places are lighted
+up by the rays of the sun, so let the degenerate shine in the light of
+their forefathers.
+
+XXXI. In this place, my Liberalis, I wish to speak in defence of the
+gods. We sometimes say, "What could Providence mean by placing an
+Arrhidaeus upon the throne?" Do you suppose that the crown was given
+to Arrhidaeus? nay, it was given to his father and his brother. Why
+did Heaven bestow the empire of the world upon Caius Caesar, the most
+bloodthirsty of mankind, who was wont to order blood to be shed in his
+presence as freely as if he wished to drink of it? Why, do you suppose
+that it was given to him? It was given to his father, Germanicus, to his
+grandfather, his great grandfather, and to others before them, no less
+illustrious men, though they lived as private citizens on a footing
+of equality with others. Why, when you yourself were making Mamercus
+Scaurus consul, were you ignorant of his vices? did he himself conceal
+them? did he wish to appear decent?
+
+Did you admit a man who was so openly filthy to the fasces and the
+tribunal? Yes, it was because you were thinking of the great old
+Scaurus, the chief of the Senate, and were unwilling that his descendant
+should be despised.
+
+XXXII. It is probable that the gods act in the same manner, that they
+show greater indulgence to some for the sake of their parents and
+their ancestry, and to others for the sake of their children and
+grandchildren, and a long line of descendants beyond them; for they
+know the whole course of their works, and have constant access to the
+knowledge of all that shall hereafter pass through their hands. These
+things come upon us from the unknown future, and the gods have foreseen
+and are familiar with the events by which we are startled. "Let these
+men," says Providence, "be kings, because their ancestors were good
+kings, because they regarded righteousness and temperance as the highest
+rule of life, because they did not devote the state to themselves, but
+devoted themselves to the state. Let these others reign, because some
+one of their ancestors before them was a good man, who bore a soul
+superior to fortune, who preferred to be conquered rather than to
+conquer in civil strife, because it was more to the advantage of
+the state. [Footnote: Gertz, "Stud. Crit," p. 159, note.] It was not
+possible to make a sufficient return to him for this during so long a
+time; let this other, therefore, out of regard for him, be chief of the
+people, not because he knows how, or is capable, but because the other
+has earned it for him. This man is misshapen, loathsome to look upon,
+and will disgrace the insignia of his office. Men will presently blame
+me, calling me blind and reckless, not knowing upon whom I am conferring
+what ought to be given to the greatest and noblest of men; but I know
+that, in giving this dignity to one man, I am paying an old debt to
+another. How should the men of to-day know that ancient hero, who so
+resolutely avoided the glory which pressed upon him, who went into
+danger with the same look which other men wear when they have escaped
+from danger, who never regarded his own interest as apart from that
+of the commonwealth?" "Where," you ask, "or who is he? whence does
+he come?" "You know him not; it lies with me to balance the debit and
+credit account in such cases as these; I know how much I owe to each
+man; I repay some after a long interval, others beforehand, according
+as my opportunities and the exigencies of my social system permit."
+I shall, therefore, sometimes bestow somewhat upon an ungrateful man,
+though not for his own sake.
+
+XXXIII. "What," argues he, "if you do not know whether your man be
+ungrateful or grateful--will you wait until you know, or will you
+not lose the opportunity of bestowing a benefit? To wait is a long
+business--for, as Plato says, it is hard to form an opinion about the
+human mind,--not to wait, is rash." To this objector we shall answer,
+that we never should wait for absolute knowledge of the whole case,
+since the discovery of truth is an arduous task, but should proceed
+in the direction in which truth appeared to direct us. All our actions
+proceed in this direction: it is thus that we sow seed, that we sail
+upon the sea, that we serve in the army, marry, and bring up children.
+The result of all these actions is uncertain, so we take that course
+from which we believe that good results may be hoped for. Who can
+guarantee a harvest to the sower, a harbour to the sailor, victory
+to the soldier, a modest wife to the husband, dutiful children to the
+father? We proceed in the way in which reason, not absolute truth,
+directs us. Wait, do nothing that will not turn out well, form no
+opinion until you have searched but the truth, and your life will pass
+in absolute in action. Since it is only the appearance of truth, not
+truth itself, which leads me hither or thither, I shall confer benefits
+upon the man who apparently will be grateful.
+
+XXXIV. "Many circumstances," argues he, "may arise which may enable a
+bad man to steal into the place of a good one, or may cause a good man
+to be disliked as though he were a bad one; for appearances, to which
+we trust, are deceptive." Who denies it? Yet I can find nothing else by
+which to guide my opinion. I must follow these tracks in my search after
+truth, for I have none more trustworthy than these; I will take pains
+to weigh the value of these with all possible care, and will not hastily
+give my assent to them. For instance, in a battle, it may happen that my
+hand may be deceived by some mistake into turning my weapon against my
+comrade, and sparing my enemy as though he were on my side; but this
+will not often take place, and will not take place through any fault of
+mine, for my object is to strike the enemy, and defend my countryman.
+If I know a man to be ungrateful, I shall not bestow a benefit upon him.
+But the man has passed himself off as a good man by some trick, and has
+imposed upon me. Well, this is not at all the fault of the giver, who
+gave under the impression that his friend was grateful. "Suppose," asks
+he, "that you were to promise to bestow a benefit, and afterwards were
+to learn that your man was ungrateful, would you bestow it or not? If
+you do, you do wrong knowingly, for you give to one to whom you ought
+not; if you refuse, you do wrong likewise, for you do not give to him to
+whom you promised to give. This case upsets your consistency, and that
+proud assurance of yours that the wise man never regrets his actions,
+or amends what he has done, or alters his plans." The wise man never
+changes his plans while the conditions under which he formed them remain
+the same; therefore, he never feels regret, because at the time nothing
+better than what he did could have been done, nor could any better
+decision have been arrived at than that which was made; yet he begins
+everything with the saving clause, "If nothing shall occur to the
+contrary." This is the reason why we say that all goes well with him,
+and that nothing happens contrary to his expectation, because he
+bears in mind the possibility of something happening to prevent the
+realization of his projects. It is an imprudent confidence to trust that
+fortune will be on our side. The wise man considers both sides: he knows
+how great is the power of errors, how uncertain human affairs are, how
+many obstacles there are to the success of plans. Without committing
+himself, he awaits the doubtful and capricious issue of events, and
+weighs certainty of purpose against uncertainty of result. Here also,
+however, he is protected by that saving clause, without which he decides
+upon nothing, and begins nothing.
+
+XXXV. When I promise to bestow a benefit, I promise it, unless something
+occurs which makes it my duty not to do so. What if, for example, my
+country orders me to give to her what I had promised to my friend? or if
+a law be passed forbidding any one to do what I had promised to do for
+him? Suppose that I have promised you my daughter in marriage, that
+then you turn out to be a foreigner, and that I have no right of
+intermarriage with foreigners; in this case, the law, by which I
+am forbidden to fulfil my promise, forms my defence. I shall be
+treacherous, and hear myself blamed for inconsistency, only if I do not
+fulfil, my promise when all conditions remain the same as when I made
+it; otherwise, any change makes me free to reconsider the entire case,
+and absolves me from my promise. I may have promised to plead a cause;
+afterwards it appears that this cause is designed to form a precedent
+for an attack upon my father. I may have promised to leave my country,
+and travel abroad; then news comes that the road is beset with robbers.
+I was going to an appointment at some particular place; but my son's
+illness, or my wife's confinement, prevented me. All conditions must be
+the same as they were when I made the promise, if you mean to hold me
+bound in honour to fulfil it. Now what greater change can take place
+than that I should discover you to be a bad and ungrateful man? I
+shall refuse to an unworthy man that which I had intended to give him
+supposing him to be worthy, and I shall also have reason to be angry
+with him for the trick which he has put upon me.
+
+XXXVI. I shall nevertheless look into the matter, and consider what the
+value of the thing promised may be. If it be trifling, I shall give it,
+not because you are worthy of it, but because I promised it, and I shall
+not give it as a present, but merely in order to make good my words
+and give myself a twitch of the ear. I will punish my own rashness in
+promising by the loss of what I gave. "See how grieved you are; mind you
+take more care what you say in future." As the saying is, I will take
+tongue money from you. If the matter be important, I will not, as
+Maecenas said, let ten million sesterces reproach me. I will weigh the
+two sides of the question one against the other: there is something in
+abiding by what you have promised; on the other hand, there is a great
+deal in not bestowing a benefit upon one who is unworthy of it. Now, how
+great is this benefit? If it is a trifling one, let us wink and let it
+pass; but if it will cause me much loss or much shame to give it, I had
+rather excuse myself once for refusing it than have to do so ever after
+for giving it. The whole point, I repeat, depends upon how much the
+thing given is worth: let the terms of my promise be appraised. Not only
+shall I refuse to give what I may have promised rashly, but I shall also
+demand back again what I may have wrongly bestowed: a man must be mad
+who keeps a promise made under a mistake.
+
+XXXVII. Philip, king of the Macedonians, had a hardy soldier whose
+services he had found useful in many campaigns. From time to time he
+made this man presents of part of the plunder as the reward of his
+valour, and used to excite his greedy spirit by his frequent gifts. This
+man was cast by shipwreck upon the estate of a certain Macedonian,
+who as soon as he heard the news hastened to him, restored his breath,
+removed him to his own farmhouse, gave up his own bed to him, nursed him
+out of his weakened and half-dead condition, took care of him at his own
+expense for thirty days, restored him to health and gave him a sum of
+money for his journey, as the man kept constantly saying, "If only I
+can see my chief, I will repay your kindness." He told Philip of his
+shipwreck, said nothing about the help which he had received, and at
+once demanded that a certain man's estate should be given to him.
+The man was a friend of his: it was that very man by whom he had been
+rescued and restored to health. Sometimes, especially in time of war,
+kings bestow many gifts with their eyes shut. One just man cannot deal
+with such a mass of armed selfishness. It is not possible for any one
+to be at the same time a good man and a good general. How are so many
+thousands of insatiable men to be satiated? What would they have,
+if every man had his own? Thus Philip reasoned with himself while he
+ordered the man to be put in possession of the property which he asked
+for. However, the other, when driven out of his estate, did not, like a
+peasant, endure his wrongs in silence, thankful that he himself was not
+given away also, but sent a sharp and outspoken letter to Philip, who,
+on reading it, was so much enraged that he straightway ordered Pausanias
+to restore the property to its former owner, and to brand that
+wickedest of soldiers, that most ungrateful of guests, that greediest
+of shipwrecked men, with letters bearing witness to his ingratitude. He,
+indeed, deserved to have the letters not merely branded but carved in
+his flesh, for having reduced his host to the condition in which he
+himself had been when he lay naked and shipwrecked upon the beach;
+still, let us see within what limits one ought to keep in punishing him.
+Of course what he had so villainously seized ought to be taken from him.
+But who would be affected by the spectacle of his punishment? The crime
+which he had committed would prevent his being pitied even by any humane
+person.
+
+XXXVIII. Will Philip then give you a thing because he has promised to
+give it, even though he ought not to do so, even though he will commit
+a wrong by doing so, nay, a crime, even though by this one act he will
+make it impossible for shipwrecked men to reach the shore? There is no
+inconsistency in giving up an intention which we have discovered to
+be wrong and have condemned as wrong; we ought candidly to admit, "I
+thought that it was something different; I have been deceived." It is
+mere pride and folly to persist, "what I once have said, be it what
+it may, shall remain unaltered and settled." There is no disgrace in
+altering one's plans according to circumstances. Now, if Philip had
+left this man in possession of that seashore which he obtained by
+his shipwreck, would he not have practically pronounced sentence of
+banishment against all unfortunates for the future? "Rather," says
+Philip, "do thou carry upon thy forehead of brass those letters, that
+they may be impressed upon the eyes of all throughout my kingdom. Go,
+let men see how sacred a thing is the table of hospitality; show them
+your face, that upon it they may read the decree which prevents its
+being a capital crime to give refuge to the unfortunate under one's
+roof. The order will be more certainly respected by this means than if I
+had inscribed it upon tablets of brass."
+
+XXXIX. "Why then," argues our adversary, "did your Stoic philosopher
+Zeno, when he had promised a loan of five hundred denarii to some
+person, whom he afterwards discovered to be of doubtful character,
+persist in lending it, because of his promise, though his friends
+dissuaded him from doing so?" In the first place a loan is on a
+different footing to a benefit. Even when we have lent money to an
+undesirable person we can recall it; I can demand payment upon a certain
+day, and if he becomes bankrupt, I can obtain my share of his property;
+but a benefit is lost utterly and instantly. Besides, the one is the act
+of a bad man, the other that of a bad father of a family. In the next
+place, if the sum had been a larger one, not even Zeno would have
+persisted in lending it. It was five hundred denarii; the sort of sum of
+which one says, "May he spend it in sickness," and it was worth paying
+so much to avoid breaking his promise. I shall go out to supper, even
+though the weather be cold, because I have promised to go; but I shall
+not if snow be falling. I shall leave my bed to go to a betrothal feast,
+although I may be suffering from indigestion; but I shall not do so if I
+am feverish. I will become bail for you, because I promised; but not if
+you wish me to become bail in some transaction of uncertain issue, if
+you expose me to forfeiting my money to the state. There runs through
+all these cases, I argue, an implied exception; if I am able, provided
+it is right for me to do so, if these things be so and so. Make the
+position the same when you ask me to fulfil my promise, as it was when
+I gave it, and it will be mere fickleness to disappoint you; but if
+something new has taken place in the meanwhile, why should you wonder at
+my intentions being changed when the conditions under which I gave the
+promise are changed? Put everything back as it was, and I shall be the
+same as I was. We enter into recognizances to appear, yet if we fail to
+do so an action will not in all cases lie against us, for we are excused
+for making default if forced to do so by a power which we cannot resist.
+
+XL. You may take the same answer to the question as to whether we ought
+in all cases to show gratitude for kindness, and whether a benefit ought
+in all cases to be repaid. It is my duty to show a grateful mind, but
+in some cases my own poverty, in others the prosperity of the friend
+to whom I owe some return, will not permit me to give it. What, for
+instance, am I, a poor man, to give to a king or a rich man in return
+for his kindness, especially as some men regard it as a wrong to have
+their benefits repaid, and are wont to pile one benefit upon another? In
+dealing with such persons, what more can I do than wish to repay them?
+Yet I ought not to refuse to receive a new benefit, because I have not
+repaid the former one. I shall take it as freely as it is given, and
+will offer myself to my friend as a wide field for the exercise of
+his good nature: he who is unwilling to receive new benefits must be
+dissatisfied with what he has already received. Do you say, "I shall
+not be able to return them?" What is that to the purpose? I am willing
+enough to do so if opportunity or means were given me. He gave it to me,
+of course, having both opportunity and means: is he a good man or a bad
+one? if he is a good man, I have a good case against him, and I will
+not plead if he be a bad one. Neither do I think it right to insist on
+making repayment, even though it be against the will of those whom we
+repay, and to press it upon them however reluctant they may be; it is
+not repayment to force an unwilling man to resume what you were once
+willing to take. Some people, if any trifling present be sent to them,
+afterwards send back something else for no particular reason, and then
+declare that they are under no obligation; to send something back at
+once, and balance one present by another, is the next thing to refusing
+to receive it. On some occasions I shall not return a benefit, even
+though I be able to do so. When? When by so doing I shall myself lose
+more than he will gain, or if he would not notice any advantage to
+himself in receiving that which it would be a great loss to me to
+return. The man who is always eager to repay under all circumstances,
+has not the feeling of a grateful man, but of a debtor; and, to put
+it shortly, he who is too eager to repay, is unwilling to be in his
+friend's debt; he who is unwilling, and yet is in his friend's debt, is
+ungrateful.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK V.
+
+I.
+
+
+In the preceding books I seem to have accomplished the object which I
+proposed to myself, since in them I have discussed how a benefit ought
+to be bestowed, and how it ought to be received. These are the limits of
+this action; when I dwell upon it further I am not obeying the orders,
+but the caprices of my subject which ought to be followed whither it
+leads, not whither it allures us to wander; for now and then something
+will arise, which, although it is all but unconnected with the subject,
+instead of being a necessary part of it, still thrills the mind with a
+certain charm. However, since you wish it to be so, let us go on, after
+having completed our discussion of the heads of the subject itself,
+to investigate those matters which, if you wish for truth, I must
+call adjacent to it, not actually connected with it; to examine which
+carefully is not one worth one's while, and yet is not labour in vain.
+No praise, however, which I can give to benefits does justice to
+you, Aebutius Liberalis, a man of excellent disposition and naturally
+inclined to bestow them. Never have I seen any one esteem even the most
+trifling services more kindly; indeed, your good-nature goes so far
+as to regard whatever benefit is bestowed upon anyone as bestowed upon
+yourself; you are prepared to pay even what is owed by the ungrateful,
+that no one may regret having bestowed benefits. You yourself are so far
+from any boastfulness, you are so eager at once to free those whom you
+serve from any feeling of obligation to you, that you like, when giving
+anything to any one, to seem not so much to be giving a present as
+returning one; and therefore what you give in this manner will all the
+more fully he repaid to you: for, as a rule, benefits come to one who
+does not demand repayment of them; and just as glory follows those who
+avoid it, so men receive a more plentiful harvest in return for benefits
+bestowed upon those who had it in their power to be ungrateful. With you
+there is no reason why those who have received benefits from you should
+not ask for fresh ones; nor would you refuse to bestow others, to
+overlook and conceal what you have given, and to add to it more and
+greater gifts, since it is the aim of all the best men and the noblest
+dispositions to bear with an ungrateful man until you make him grateful.
+Be not deceived in pursuing this plan; vice, if you do not too soon
+begin to hate it, will yield to virtue.
+
+II. Thus it is that you are especially pleased with what you think the
+grandly-sounding phrase, "It is disgraceful to be worsted in a contest
+of benefits." Whether this be true or not deserves to be investigated,
+and it means something quite different from what you imagine; for it is
+never disgraceful to be worsted in any honourable contest, provided that
+you do not throw down your arms, and that even when conquered you
+wish to conquer. All men do not strive for a good object with the same
+strength, resources, and good fortune, upon which depend at all events
+the issues of the most admirable projects, though we ought to praise the
+will itself which makes an effort in the right direction. Even though
+another passes it by with swifter pace, yet the palm of victory does
+not, as in publicly-exhibited races, declare which is the better man;
+though even in the games chance frequently brings an inferior man to the
+front. As far as loyalty of feeling goes, which each man wishes to be
+possessed in the fullest measure on his own side, if one of the two be
+the more powerful, if he have at his disposal all the resources which he
+wishes to use, and be favoured by fortune in his most ambitious efforts,
+while the other, although equally willing, can only return less than he
+receives, or perhaps can make no return at all, but still wishes to do
+so and is entirely devoted to this object; then the latter is no more
+conquered than he who dies in arms, whom the enemy found it easier to
+slay than to turn back. To be conquered, which you consider disgraceful,
+cannot happen to a good man; for he will never surrender, never give up
+the contest, to the last day of his life he will stand prepared and in
+that posture he will die, testifying that though he has received much,
+yet that he had the will to repay as much as he had received.
+
+III. The Lacedaemonians forbid their young men to contend in the
+pancratium, or with the caestus, in which games the defeated party has
+to acknowledge himself beaten. The winner of a race is he who first
+reaches the goal; he outstrips the others in swiftness, but not in
+courage. The wrestler who has been thrown three times loses the palm of
+victory, but does not yield it up. Since the Lacedaemonians thought it
+of great importance that their countrymen should be invincible, they
+kept them away from those contests in which victory is assigned, not by
+the judge, or by the issue of the contest itself, but by the voice
+of the vanquished begging the victor to spare him as he falls. This
+attribute of never being conquered, which they so jealously guard among
+their citizens, can be attained by all men through virtue and goodwill,
+because even when all else is vanquished, the mind remains unconquered.
+For this cause no one speaks of the three hundred Fabii as conquered,
+but slaughtered. Regulus was taken captive by the Carthaginians, not
+conquered; and so were all other men who have not yielded in spirit when
+overwhelmed by the strength and weight of angry fortune.
+
+So is it with benefits. A man may have received more than he gave, more
+valuable ones, more frequently bestowed; yet is he not vanquished. It
+may be that, if you compare the benefits with one another, those which
+he has received will outweigh those which he has bestowed; but if you
+compare the giver and the receiver, whose intentions also ought to be
+considered apart, neither will prove the victor. It often happens that
+even when one combatant is pierced with many wounds, while the other is
+only slightly injured, yet they are said to have fought a drawn battle,
+although the former may appear to be the worse man.
+
+IV. No one, therefore, can be conquered in a contest of benefits, if he
+knows how to owe a debt, if he wishes to make a return for what he
+has received, and raises himself to the same level with his friend in
+spirit, though he cannot do so in material gifts. As long as he remains
+in this temper of mind, as long as he has the wish to declare by proofs
+that he has a grateful mind, what difference does it make upon which
+side we can count the greater number of presents? You are able to give
+much; I can do nothing but receive. Fortune abides with you, goodwill
+alone with me; yet I am as much on an equality with you as naked or
+lightly armed men are with a large body armed to the teeth. No one,
+therefore, is worsted by benefits, because each man's gratitude is to be
+measured by his will. If it be disgraceful to be worsted in a contest
+of benefits, you ought not to receive a benefit from very powerful men
+whose kindness you cannot return, I mean such as princes and kings, whom
+fortune has placed in such a station that they can give away much, and
+can only receive very little and quite inadequate returns for what they
+give. I have spoken of kings and princes, who alone can cause works to
+be accomplished, and whose superlative power depends upon the obedience
+and services of inferiors; but some there are, free from all earthly
+lusts, who are scarcely affected by any human objects of desire, upon
+whom fortune herself could bestow nothing. I must be worsted in a
+contest of benefits with Socrates, or with Diogenes, who walked naked
+through the treasures of Macedonia, treading the king's wealth under his
+feet. In good sooth, he must then rightly have seemed, both to himself
+and to all others whose eyes were keen enough to perceive the real
+truth, to be superior even to him at whose feet all the world lay.
+He was far more powerful, far richer even than Alexander, who then
+possessed everything; for there was more that Diogenes could refuse to
+receive than that Alexander was able to give.
+
+V. It is not disgraceful to be worsted by these men, for I am not the
+less brave because you pit me against an invulnerable enemy, nor does
+fire not burn because you throw into it something over which flames have
+no power, nor does iron lose its power of cutting, though you may wish
+to cut up a stone which is hard, impervious to blows, and of such a
+nature that hard tools are blunted upon it. I give you the same answer
+about gratitude. A man is not disgracefully worsted in a contest of
+benefits if he lays himself under an obligation to such persons
+as these, whose enormous wealth or admirable virtue shut out all
+possibility of their benefits being returned. As a rule we are worsted
+by our parents; for while we have them with us, we regard them as
+severe, and do not understand what they do for us. When our age begins
+to bring us a little sense, and we gradually perceive that they deserve
+our love for those very things which used to prevent our loving them,
+their advice, their punishments, and the careful watch which they used
+to keep over our youthful recklessness, they are taken from us. Few live
+to reap any real fruit from children; most men feel their sons only as
+a burden. Yet there is no disgrace in being worsted by one's parent
+in bestowing benefits; how should there be, seeing that there is no
+disgrace in being worsted by anyone. We are equal to some men, and yet
+not equal; equal in intention, which is all that they care for, which
+is all that we promise to be, but unequal in fortune. And if fortune
+prevents any one from repaying a kindness, he need not, therefore,
+blush, as though he were vanquished; there is no disgrace in failing
+to reach your object, provided you attempt to reach it. It often is
+necessary, that before making any return for the benefits which we have
+received, we should ask for new ones; yet, if so, we shall not refrain
+from asking for them, nor shall we do so as though disgraced by so
+doing, because, even if we do not repay the debt, we shall owe it;
+because, even if something from without befalls us to prevent our
+repaying it, it will not be our fault if we are not grateful. We can
+neither be conquered in intention, nor can we be disgraced by yielding
+to what is beyond our strength to contend with.
+
+VI. Alexander, the king of the Macedonians, used to boast that he had
+never been worsted by anybody in a contest of benefits. If so, it was
+no reason why, in the fulness of his pride, he should despise the
+Macedonians, Greeks, Carians, Persians, and other tribes of whom his
+army was composed, nor need he imagine that it was this that gave him an
+empire reaching from a corner of Thrace to the shore of the unknown
+sea. Socrates could make the same boast, and so could Diogenes, by whom
+Alexander was certainly surpassed; for was he not surpassed on the day
+when, swelling as he was beyond the limits of merely human pride,
+he beheld one to whom he could give nothing, from whom he could take
+nothing? King Archelaus invited Socrates to come to him. Socrates is
+reported to have answered that he should be sorry to go to one who would
+bestow benefits upon him, since he should not be able to make him an
+adequate return for them. In the first place, Socrates was at liberty
+not to receive them; next, Socrates himself would have been the first
+to bestow a benefit, for he would have come when invited, and would have
+given to Archelaus that for which Archelaus could have made no return to
+Socrates. Even if Archelaus were to give Socrates gold and silver, if
+he learned in return for them to despise gold and silver, would not
+Socrates be able to repay Archelaus? Could Socrates receive from him
+as much value as he gave, in displaying to him a man skilled in the
+knowledge of life and of death, comprehending the true purpose of each?
+Suppose that he had found this king, as it were, groping his way in the
+clear sunlight, and had taught him the secrets of nature, of which he
+was so ignorant, that when there was an eclipse of the sun, he up his
+palace, and shaved his son's head, [Footnote: Gertz very reasonably
+conjectures that he shaved his own head which reading would require a
+very trifling alteration of the text.] which men are wont to do in times
+of mourning and distress. What a benefit it would have been if he had
+dragged the terror-stricken king out of his hiding-place, and bidden him
+be of good cheer, saying, "This is not a disappearance of the sun, but a
+conjunction of two heavenly bodies; for the moon, which proceeds along
+a lower path, has placed her disk beneath the sun, and hidden it by the
+interposition of her own mass. Sometimes she only hides a small portion
+of the sun's disk, because she only grazes it in passing; sometimes
+she hides more, by placing more of herself before it; and sometimes she
+shuts it out from our sight altogether, if she passes in an exactly even
+course between the sun and the earth. Soon, however, their own swift
+motion will draw these two bodies apart; soon the earth will receive
+back again the light of day. And this system will continue throughout
+centuries, having certain days, known beforehand, upon which the sun
+cannot display all rays, because of the intervention of the moon. Wait
+only for a short time; he will soon emerge, he will soon leave that
+seeming cloud, and freely shed abroad his light without any hindrances."
+Could Socrates not have made an adequate return to Archelaus, if he
+had taught him to reign? as though Socrates would not benefit him
+sufficiently, merely by enabling him to bestow a benefit upon Socrates.
+Why, then, did Socrates say this? Being a joker and a speaker in
+parables--a man who turned all, especially the great, into ridicule--he
+preferred giving him a satirical refusal, rather than an obstinate or
+haughty one, and therefore said that he did not wish to receive benefits
+from one to whom he could not return as much as he received. He feared,
+perhaps, that he might be forced to receive something which he did
+not wish, he feared that it might be something unfit for Socrates to
+receive. Some one may say, "He ought to have said that he did not wish
+to go." But by so doing he would have excited against himself the anger
+of an arrogant king, who wished everything connected with himself to be
+highly valued. It makes no difference to a king whether you be unwilling
+to give anything to him or to accept anything from him; he is equally
+incensed at either rebuff, and to be treated with disdain is more
+bitter to a proud spirit than not to be feared. Do you wish to know what
+Socrates really meant? He, whose freedom of speech could not be borne
+even by a free state, was not willing of his own choice to become a
+slave.
+
+VII. I think that we have sufficiently discussed this part of the
+subject, whether it be disgraceful to be worsted in a contest of
+benefits. Whoever asks this question must know that men are not wont
+to bestow benefits upon themselves, for evidently it could not be
+disgraceful to be worsted by oneself. Yet some of the Stoics debate this
+question, whether any one can confer a benefit upon himself, and whether
+one ought to return one's own kindness to oneself. This discussion has
+been raised in consequence of our habit of saying, "I am thankful
+to myself," "I can complain of no one but myself," "I am angry with
+myself," "I will punish myself," "I hate myself," and many other phrases
+of the same sort, in which one speaks of oneself as one would of some
+other person. "If," they argue, "I can injure myself, why should I not
+be able also to bestow a benefit upon myself? Besides this, why are
+those things not called benefits when I bestow them upon myself which
+would be called benefits if I bestowed them upon another? If to receive
+a certain thing from another would lay me under an obligation to him,
+how is it that if I give it to myself, I do not contract an obligation
+to myself? why should I be ungrateful to my own self, which is no less
+disgraceful than it is to be mean to oneself, or hard and cruel to
+oneself, or neglectful of oneself?" The procurer is equally odious
+whether he prostitutes others or himself. We blame a flatterer, and one
+who imitates another man's mode of speech, or is prepared to give praise
+whether it be deserved or not; we ought equally to blame one who humours
+himself and looks up to himself, and so to speak is his own flatterer.
+Vices are not only hateful when outwardly practised, but also when they
+are repressed within the mind. Whom would you admire more than he who
+governs himself and has himself under command? It is easier to rule
+savage nations, impatient of foreign control, than to restrain one's
+own mind and keep it under one's own control. Plato, it is argued,
+was grateful to Socrates for having been taught by him; why should not
+Socrates be grateful to himself for having taught himself? Marcus Cato
+said, "Borrow from yourself whatever you lack;" why, then, if I can
+lend myself anything, should I be unable to give myself anything? The
+instances in which usage divides us into two persons are innumerable; we
+are wont to say, "Let me converse with myself," and, "I will give myself
+a twitch of the ear;" [Footnote: See book iv. ch. xxxvi.] and if it be
+true that one can do so, then a man ought to be grateful to himself,
+just as he is angry with himself; as he blames himself, SO he ought
+to praise himself; since he can impoverish himself, he can also enrich
+himself. Injuries and benefits are the converse of one another: if we
+say of a man, 'he has done himself an injury,' we can also say 'he has
+bestowed upon himself a benefit?'
+
+VIII. It is natural that a man should first incur an obligation, and
+then that he should return gratitude for it; a debtor cannot exist
+without a creditor, any more than a husband without a wife, or a son
+without a father; someone must give in order that some one may
+receive. Just as no one carries himself, although he moves his body and
+transports it from place to place; as no one, though he may have made a
+speech in his own defence, is said to have stood by himself, or erects
+a statue to himself as his own patron; as no sick man, when by his
+own care he has regained his health, asks himself for a fee; so in no
+transaction, even when a man does what is useful to himself, need he
+return thanks to himself, because there is no one to whom he can return
+them. Though I grant that a man can bestow a benefit upon himself, yet
+at the same time that he gives it, he also receives it; though I grant
+that a man may receive a benefit from himself, yet he receives it at the
+same time that he gives it. The exchange takes place within doors, as
+they say, and the transfer is made at once, as though the debt were a
+fictitious one; for he who gives is not a different person to he who
+receives, but one and the same. The word "to owe" has no meaning except
+as between two persons; how then can it apply to one man who incurs an
+obligation, and by the same act frees himself from it? In a disk or
+a ball there is no top or bottom, no beginning or end, because the
+relation of the parts is changed when it moves, what was behind coming
+before, and what went down on one side coming up on the other, so that
+all the parts, in whatever direction they may move, come back to the
+same position. Imagine that the same thing takes place in a man; into
+however many pieces you may divide him, he remains one. If he strikes
+himself, he has no one to call to account for the insult; if he binds
+himself and locks himself up, he cannot demand damages; if he bestows a
+benefit upon himself, he straightway returns it to the giver. It is said
+that there is no waste in nature, because everything which is taken from
+nature returns to her again, and nothing can perish, because it cannot
+fall out of nature, but goes round again to the point from whence
+it started. You ask, "What connection has this illustration with the
+subject?" I will tell you. Imagine yourself to be ungrateful, the
+benefit bestowed upon you is not lost, he who gave it has it; suppose
+that you are unwilling to receive it, it still belongs to you before it
+is returned. You cannot lose anything, because what you take away from
+yourself, you nevertheless gain yourself. The matter revolves in a
+circle within yourself; by receiving you give, by giving you receive.
+
+IX. "It is our duty," argues our adversary, "to bestow benefits upon
+ourselves, therefore we ought also to be grateful to ourselves." The
+original axiom, upon which the inference depends, is untrue, for no one
+bestows benefits upon himself, but obeys the dictates of his nature,
+which disposes him to affection for himself, and which makes him take
+the greatest pains to avoid hurtful things, and to follow after those
+things which are profitable to him. Consequently, the man who gives to
+himself is not generous, nor is he who pardons himself forgiving, nor is
+he who is touched by his own misfortunes tender-hearted; it is
+natural to do those things to oneself which when done to others become
+generosity, clemency, and tenderness of heart. A benefit is a voluntary
+act, but to do good to oneself is an instinctive one. The more benefits
+a man bestows, the more beneficent he is, yet who ever was praised for
+having been of service to himself? or for having rescued himself from
+brigands? No one bestows a benefit upon himself any more than he bestows
+hospitality upon himself; no one gives himself anything, any more than
+he lends himself anything. If each man bestows benefits upon himself, is
+always bestowing them, and bestows them without any cessation, then
+it is impossible for him to make any calculation of the number of his
+benefits; when then can he show his gratitude, seeing that by the very
+act of doing so he would bestow a benefit? for what distinction can
+you draw between giving himself a benefit or receiving a benefit for
+himself, when the whole transaction takes place in the mind of the same
+man? Suppose that I have freed myself from danger, then I have bestowed
+a benefit upon myself; suppose I free myself a second time, by so doing
+do I bestow or repay a benefit? In the next place, even if I grant the
+primary axiom, that we can bestow benefits upon ourselves, I do not
+admit that which follows; for even if we can do so, we ought not to do
+so. Wherefore? Because we receive a return for them at once. It is right
+for me to receive a benefit, then to lie under an obligation, then to
+repay it; now here there is no time for remaining under an obligation,
+because we receive the return without any delay. No one really gives
+except to another, no one owes except to another, no one repays except
+to another. An act which always requires two persons cannot take place
+within the mind of one.
+
+X. A benefit means the affording of something useful, and the word
+AFFORDING implies other persons. Would not a man be thought mad if
+he said that he had sold something to himself, because selling means
+alienation, and the transferring of a thing and of one's rights in that
+thing to another person? Yet giving, like selling anything, consists in
+making it pass away from you, handing over what you yourself once owned
+into the keeping of some one else.
+
+If this be so, no one ever gave himself a benefit, because no one gives
+to himself; if not, two opposites coalesce, so that it becomes the same
+thing to give and to receive. Yet there is a great difference between
+giving and receiving; how should there not be, seeing that these words
+are the converse of one another? Still, if any one can give himself a
+benefit, there can be no difference between giving and receiving. I said
+a little before that some words apply only to other persons, and are
+so constituted that their whole meaning lies apart from ourselves; for
+instance, I am a brother, but a brother of some other man, for no one is
+his own brother; I am an equal, but equal to somebody else, for who
+is equal to himself? A thing which is compared to another thing is
+unintelligible without that other thing; a thing which is joined to
+something else does not exist apart from it; so that which is given does
+not exist without the other person, nor can a benefit have any existence
+without another person. This is clear from the very phrase which
+describes it, 'to do good,' yet no one does good to himself, any more
+than he favours himself or is on his own side. I might enlarge further
+upon this subject and give many examples. Why should benefits not be
+included among those acts which require two persons to perform them?
+Many honourable, most admirable and highly virtuous acts cannot take
+place without a second person. Fidelity is praised and held to be one
+of the chief blessings known among men, yet was any one ever on that
+account said to have kept faith with himself?
+
+XI. I come now to the last part of this subject. The man who returns a
+kindness ought to expend something, just as he who repays expends money;
+but the man who returns a kindness to himself expends nothing, just
+as he who receives a benefit from himself gains nothing. A benefit
+and gratitude for it must pass to and fro between two persons; their
+interchange cannot take place within one man. He who returns a kindness
+does good in his turn to him from whom he has received something;
+but the man who returns his own kindness, to whom does he do good?
+To himself? Is there any one who does not regard the returning of a
+kindness, and the bestowal of a benefit, as distinct acts? 'He who
+returns a kindness to himself does good to himself.' Was any man ever
+unwilling to do this, even though he were ungrateful? nay, who ever was
+ungrateful from any other motive than this? "If," it is argued, "we are
+right in thanking ourselves, we ought to return our own kindness;"
+yet we say, "I am thankful to myself for having refused to marry that
+woman," or "for having refused to join a partnership with that man."
+When we speak thus, we are really praising ourselves, and make use
+of the language of those who return thanks to approve our own acts. A
+benefit is something which, when given, may or may not be returned.
+Now, he who gives a benefit to himself must needs receive what he gives;
+therefore, this is not a benefit. A benefit is received at one time, and
+is returned at another; (but when a man bestows a benefit upon himself,
+he both receives it and returns it at the same time). In a benefit,
+too, what we commend and admire is, that a man has for the time being
+forgotten his own interests, in order that he may do good to another;
+that he has deprived himself of something, in order to bestow it upon
+another. Now, he who bestows a benefit upon himself does not do this.
+The bestowal of a benefit is an act of companionship--it wins some man's
+friendship, and lays some man under an obligation; but to bestow it upon
+oneself is no act of companionship--it wins no man's friendship, lays
+no man under an obligation, raises no man's hopes, or leads him to
+say, "This man must be courted; he bestowed a benefit upon that person,
+perhaps he will bestow one upon me also." A benefit is a thing which
+one gives not for one's own sake, but for the sake of him to whom it is
+given; but he who bestows a benefit upon himself, does so for his own
+sake; therefore, it is not a benefit.
+
+XII. Now I seem to you not to have made good what I said at the
+beginning of this book. You say that I am far from doing what is worth
+any one's while; nay, that in real fact I have thrown away all my
+trouble. Wait, and soon you will be able to say this more truly, for
+I shall lead you into covert lurking-places, from which when you have
+escaped, you will have gained nothing except that you will have freed
+yourself from difficulties with which you need never have hampered
+yourself. What is the use of laboriously untying knots which you
+yourself have tied, in order that you might untie them? Yet, just as
+some knots are tied in fun and for amusement, so that a tyro may find
+difficulty in untying them, which knots he who tied them can loose
+without any trouble, because he knows the joinings and the difficulties
+of them, and these nevertheless afford us some pleasure, because they
+test the sharpness of our wits, and engross, our attention; so also
+these questions, which seem subtle and tricky, prevent our intellects
+becoming careless and lazy, for they ought at one time to have a field
+given them to level, in order that they may wander about it, and at
+another to have some dark and rough passage thrown in their way for them
+to creep through, and make their way with caution. It is said by
+our opponent that no one is ungrateful; and this is supported by the
+following arguments: "A benefit is that which does good; but, as you
+Stoics say, no one can do good to a bad man; therefore, a bad man does
+not receive a benefit. (If he does not receive it, he need not return
+it; therefore, no bad man is ungrateful.) Furthermore, a benefit is an
+honourable and commendable thing. No honourable or commendable thing can
+find any place with a bad man; therefore, neither can a benefit. If he
+cannot receive one, he need not repay one; therefore, he does not become
+ungrateful. Moreover, as you say, a good man does everything rightly; if
+he does everything rightly, he cannot be ungrateful. A good man returns
+a benefit, a bad man does not receive one. If this be so, no man, good
+or bad, can be ungrateful. Therefore, there is no such thing in nature
+as an ungrateful man: the word is meaningless." We Stoics have only one
+kind of good, that which is honourable. This cannot come to a bad man,
+for he would cease to be bad if virtue entered into him; but as long as
+he is bad, no one can bestow a benefit upon him, because good and bad
+are contraries, and cannot exist together. Therefore, no one can do good
+to such a man, because whatever he receives is corrupted by his vicious
+way of using it. Just as the stomach, when disordered by disease and
+secreting bile, changes all the food which it receives, and turns every
+kind of sustenance into a source of pain, so whatever you entrust to an
+ill-regulated mind becomes to it a burden, an annoyance, and a source
+of misery. Thus the most prosperous and the richest men have the most
+trouble; and the more property they have to perplex them, the less
+likely they are to find out what they really are. Nothing, therefore,
+can reach bad men which would do them good; nay, nothing which would
+not do them harm. They change whatever falls to their lot into their own
+evil nature; and things which elsewhere would, if given to better men,
+be both beautiful and profitable, are ruinous to them. They cannot,
+therefore, bestow benefits, because no one can give what he does not
+possess, and, therefore, they lack the pleasure of doing good to others.
+
+XIII. But, though this be so, yet even a bad man can receive some things
+which resemble benefits, and he will be ungrateful if he does not return
+them. There are good things belonging to the mind, to the body, and to
+fortune. A fool or a bad man is debarred from the first--those, that is,
+of the mind; but he is admitted to a share in the two latter, and, if
+he does not return them, he is ungrateful. Nor does this follow from
+our (Stoic) system alone the Peripatetics, also, who widely extend the
+boundaries of human happiness, declare that trifling benefits reach bad
+men, and that he who does not return them is ungrateful. We therefore
+do not agree that things which do not tend to improve the mind should
+be called benefits, yet do not deny that these things are convenient and
+desirable. Such things as these a bad man may bestow upon a good man,
+or may receive from him--such, for example, as money, clothes, public
+office, or life; and, if he makes no return for these, he will come
+under the denomination of ungrateful. "But how can you call a man
+ungrateful for not returning that which you say is not a benefit?" Some
+things, on account of their similarity, are included under the same
+designation, although they do not really deserve it. Thus we speak of
+a silver or golden box; ["The original word is 'pyx,' which means a box
+made of box-wood."] thus we call a man illiterate, although he may not
+be utterly ignorant, but only not acquainted with the higher branches of
+literature; thus, seeing a badly-dressed ragged man we say that we have
+seen a naked man. These things of which we spoke are not benefits,
+but they possess the appearance of benefits. "Then, just as they are
+quasi-benefits, so your man is quasi-ungrateful, not really ungrateful."
+This is untrue, because both he who gives and he who receives them
+speaks of them as benefits; so he who fails to return the semblance of
+a real benefit is as much an ungrateful man as he who mixes a sleeping
+draught, believing it to be poison, is a poisoner.
+
+XIV. Cleanthes speaks more impetuously than this. "Granted," says he,
+"that what he received was not a benefit, yet he is ungrateful, because
+he would not have returned a benefit if he had received one." So he who
+carries deadly weapons and has intentions of robbing and murdering, is
+a brigand even before he has dipped his hands in blood; his wickedness
+consists and is shown in action, but does not begin thereby. Men are
+punished for sacrilege, although no one's hands can reach to the gods.
+"How," asks our opponent, "can any one be ungrateful to a bad man, since
+a bad man cannot bestow a benefit?" In the same way, I answer, because
+that which he received was not a benefit, but was called one; if any
+one receives from a bad man any of those things which are valued by the
+ignorant, and of which bad men often possess great store, it becomes his
+duty to make a return in the same kind, and to give back as though they
+were truly good those things which he received as though they were
+truly good. A man is said to be in debt, whether he owes gold pieces
+or leather marked with a state stamp, such as the Lacedaemonians used,
+which passes for coined money. Pay your debts in that kind in which you
+incurred them. You have nothing to do with the definition of benefits,
+or with the question whether so great and noble a name ought to be
+degraded by applying it to such vulgar and mean matters as these, nor do
+we seek for truth that we may use it to the disadvantage of others;
+do you adjust your minds to the semblance of truth, and while you are
+learning what is really honourable, respect everything to which the name
+of honour is applied.
+
+XV. "In the same way," argues our adversary, "that your school proves
+that no one is ungrateful, you afterwards prove that all men are
+ungrateful. For, as you say, all fools are bad men; he who has one vice
+has all vices; all men are both fools and bad men; therefore all men are
+ungrateful." Well, what then? Are they not? Is not this the universal
+reproach of the human race? is there not a general complaint that
+benefits are thrown away, and that there are very few men who do not
+requite their benefactors with the basest ingratitude? Nor need you
+suppose that what we say is merely the grumbling of men who think
+every act wicked and depraved which falls short of an ideal standard of
+righteousness. Listen! I know not who it is who speaks, yet the voice
+with which he condemns mankind proceeds, not from the schools of
+philosophers, but from the midst of the crowd:
+
+  "Host is not safe from guest;
+   Father-in-law from son; but seldom love
+   Exists 'twixt brothers; wives long to destroy
+   Their husbands; husbands long to slay their wives."
+
+This goes even further: according to this, crimes take the place of
+benefits, and men do not shrink from shedding the blood of those for
+whom they ought to shed their own; we requite benefits by steel and
+poison. We call laying violent hands upon our own country, and putting
+down its resistance by the fasces of its own lictors, gaining power
+and great place; every man thinks himself to be in a mean and degraded
+position if he has not raised himself above the constitution; the armies
+which are received from the state are turned against her, and a general
+now says to his men, "Fight against your wives, fight against your
+children, march in arms against your altars, your hearths and homes!"
+Yes, [Footnote: I believe, in spite of Gertz, that this is part of
+the speech of the Roman general, and that the conjecture of Muretus,
+"without the command of the senate," gives better sense.] you, who even
+when about to triumph ought not to enter the city at the command of the
+senate, and who have often, when bringing home a victorious army, been
+given an audience outside the walls, you now, after slaughtering your
+countrymen, stained with the blood of your kindred, march into the city
+with standards erect. "Let liberty," say you, "be silent amidst the
+ensigns of war, and now that wars are driven far away and no ground
+for terror remains, let that people which conquered and civilized all
+nations be beleaguered within its own walls, and shudder at the sight of
+its own eagles."
+
+XVI. Coriolanus was ungrateful, and became dutiful late, and after
+repenting of his crime; he did indeed lay down his arms, but only in
+the midst of his unnatural warfare. Catilina was ungrateful; he was
+not satisfied with taking his country captive without overturning it,
+without despatching the hosts of the Allobroges against it, without
+bringing an enemy from beyond the Alps to glut his old inborn hatred,
+and to offer Roman generals as sacrifices which had been long owing to
+the tombs of the Gaulish dead. Caius Marius was ungrateful, when, after
+being raised from the ranks to the consulship, he felt that he would not
+have wreaked his vengeance upon fortune, and would sink to his original
+obscurity, unless he slaughtered Romans as freely as he had slaughtered
+the Cimbri, and not merely gave the signal, but was himself the signal
+for civil disasters and butcheries. Lucius Sulla was ungrateful, for he
+saved his country by using remedies worse than the perils with which it
+was threatened, when he marched through human blood all the way from the
+citadel of Praeneste to the Colline Gate, fought more battles and caused
+more slaughter afterwards within the city, and most cruelly after the
+victory was won, most wickedly after quarter had been promised them,
+drove two legions into a corner and put them to the sword, and, great
+gods! invented a proscription by which he who slew a Roman citizen
+received indemnity, a sum of money, everything but a civic crown! Cnaeus
+Pompeius was ungrateful, for the return which he made to his country for
+three consulships, three triumphs, and the innumerable public offices
+into most of which he thrust himself when under age, was to lead others
+also to lay hands upon her under the pretext of thus rendering his own
+power less odious; as though what no one ought to do became right
+if more than one person did it. Whilst he was coveting extraordinary
+commands, arranging the provinces so as to have his own choice of them,
+and dividing the whole state with a third person, [Footnote: Crassus.]
+in such a manner as to leave two-thirds of it in the possession of his
+own family, [Footnote: Pompey was married to Caesar's daughter. Cf.
+Virg., "Aen.," vi., 831, sq., and Lucan's beautiful verses, "Phars.,"
+i., 114.] he reduced the Roman people to such a condition that they
+could only save themselves by submitting to slavery. The foe and
+conqueror [Footnote: Seneca is careful to avoid the mention of Caesar's
+name, which might have given offence to the emperors under whom
+he lived, who used the name as a title.] of Pompeius was himself
+ungrateful; he brought war from Gaul and Germany to Rome, and he, the
+friend of the populace, the champion of the commons, pitched his camp in
+the Circus Flaminus, nearer to the city than Porsena's camp had been. He
+did, indeed, use the cruel privileges of victory with moderation; as was
+said at the time, he protected his countrymen, and put to death no man
+who was not in arms. Yet what credit is there in this? Others used their
+arms more cruelly, but flung them away when glutted with blood, while
+he, though he soon sheathed the sword, never laid it aside. Antonius was
+ungrateful to his dictator, who he declared was rightly slain, and whose
+murderers he allowed to depart to their commands in the provinces;
+as for his country, after it had been torn to pieces by so many
+proscriptions, invasions, and civil wars, he intended to subject it
+to kings, not even of Roman birth, and to force that very state to pay
+tribute to eunuchs, [Footnote: The allusion is to Antonius's connection
+with Cleopatra. Cf. Virg. "Aen.," viii., 688.] which had itself restored
+sovereign rights, autonomy, and immunities, to the Achaeans, the
+Rhodians, and the people of many other famous cities.
+
+XVII. The day would not be long enough for me to enumerate those who
+have pushed their ingratitude so far as to ruin their native land.
+It would be as vast a task to mention how often the state has been
+ungrateful to its best and most devoted lovers, although it has done no
+less wrong than it has suffered. It sent Camillus and Scipio into exile;
+even after the death of Catiline it exiled Cicero, destroyed his house,
+plundered his property, and did everything which Catiline would
+have done if victorious; Rutilius found his virtue rewarded with a
+hiding-place in Asia; to Cato the Roman people refused the praetorship,
+and persisted in refusing the consulship. We are ungrateful in public
+matters; and if every man asks himself, you will find that there is
+no one who has not some private ingratitude to complain of. Yet it is
+impossible that all men should complain, unless all were deserving of
+complaint, therefore all men are ungrateful. Are they ungrateful
+alone? nay, they are also all covetous, all spiteful, and all cowardly,
+especially those who appear daring; and, besides this, all men fawn upon
+the great, and all are impious. Yet you need not be angry with them;
+pardon them, for they are all mad. I do not wish to recall you to what
+is not proved, or to say, "See how ungrateful is youth! what young man,
+even if of innocent life, does not long for his father's death? even if
+moderate in his desires, does not look forward to it? even if dutiful,
+does not think about it? How few there are who fear the death even of
+the best of wives, who do not even calculate the probabilities of it.
+Pray, what litigant, after having been successfully defended, retains
+any remembrance of so great a benefit for more than a few days?" All
+agree that no one dies without complaining. Who on his last day dares to
+say,
+
+  "I've lived, I've done the task which Fortune set me."
+
+Who does not leave the world with reluctance, and with lamentations? Yet
+it is the part of an ungrateful man not to be satisfied with the past.
+Your days will always be few if you count them. Reflect that length
+of time is not the greatest of blessings; make the best of your time,
+however short it may be; even if the day of your death be postponed,
+your happiness will not be increased, for life is merely made longer,
+not pleasanter, by delay. How much better is it to be thankful for the
+pleasures which one has received, not to reckon up the years of others,
+but to set a high value upon one's own, and score them to one's credit,
+saying, "God thought me worthy of this; I am satisfied with it; he might
+have given me more, but this, too, is a benefit." Let us be grateful
+towards both gods and men, grateful to those who have given us anything,
+and grateful even to those who have given anything to our relatives.
+
+XVIII. "You render me liable to an infinite debt of gratitude," says our
+opponent, "when you say 'even to those who have given any thing to our
+relations,' so fix some limit. He who bestows a benefit upon the son,
+according to you, bestows it likewise upon the father: this is the first
+question I wish to raise. In the next place I should like to have a
+clear definition of whether a benefit, if it be bestowed upon your
+friend's father as well as upon himself, is bestowed also upon his
+brother? or upon his uncle? or his grandfather? or his wife and his
+father-in-law? tell me where I am to stop, how far I am to follow out
+the pedigree of the family?"
+
+SENECA. If I cultivate your land, I bestow a benefit upon you; if I
+extinguish your house when burning, or prop it so as to save it from
+falling, I shall bestow a benefit upon you; if I heal your slave, I
+shall charge it to you; if I save your son's life, will you not thereby
+receive a benefit from me?
+
+XIX. THE ADVERSARY. Your instances are not to the purpose, for he who
+cultivates my land, does not benefit the land, but me; he who props my
+house so that it does not fall, does this service to me, for the house
+itself is without feeling, and as it has none, it is I who am indebted
+to him; and he who cultivates my land does so because he wishes to
+oblige me, not to oblige the land. I should say the same of a slave; he
+is a chattel owned by me; he is saved for my advantage, therefore I am
+indebted for him. My son is himself capable of receiving a benefit; so
+it is he who receives it; I am gratified at a benefit which comes so
+near to myself, but am not laid under any obligation.
+
+SE. Still I should like you, who say that you are under no obligation,
+to answer me this. The good health, the happiness, and the inheritance
+of a son are connected with his father; his father will be more happy if
+he keeps his son safe, and more unhappy if he loses him. What follows,
+then? when a man is made happier by me and is freed from the greatest
+danger of unhappiness, does he not receive a benefit?
+
+AD. No, because there are some things which are bestowed upon others,
+and yet flow from them so as to reach ourselves; yet we must ask the
+person upon whom it was bestowed for repayment; as for example, money
+must be sought from the man to whom it was lent, although it may,
+by some means, have come into my hands. There is no benefit whose
+advantages do not extend to the receiver's nearest friends, and
+sometimes even to those less intimately connected with him; yet we do
+not enquire whither the benefit has proceeded from him to whom it was
+first given, but where it was first placed. You must demand repayment
+from the defendant himself personally.
+
+SE. Well, but I pray you, do you not say, "you have preserved my son for
+me; had he perished, I could not have survived him?" Do you not owe
+a benefit for the life of one whose safety you value above your own?
+Moreover, should I save your son's life, you would fall down before
+my knees, and would pay vows to heaven as though you yourself had been
+saved; you would say, "It makes no difference whether you have saved
+mine or me; you have saved us both, yet me more than him." Why do you
+say this, if you do not receive a benefit?
+
+A.D. Because, if my son were to contract a loan, I should pay his
+creditor, yet I should not, therefore, be indebted to him; or if my son
+were taken in adultery, I should blush, yet I should not, therefore, be
+an adulterer. I say that I am under an obligation to you for saving my
+son, not because I really am, but because I am willing to constitute
+myself your debtor of my own free will. On the other hand I have derived
+from his safety the greatest possible pleasure and advantage, and I have
+escaped that most dreadful blow, the loss of my child. True, but we are
+not now discussing whether you have done me any good or not, but whether
+you have bestowed a benefit upon me; for animals, stones, and herbs can
+do one good, but do not bestow benefits, which can only be given by one
+who wishes well to the receiver. Now you do not wish well to the father,
+but only to the son; and sometimes you do not even know the father. So
+when you have said, "Have I not bestowed a benefit upon the father by
+saving the son?" you ought to meet this with, "Have I, then, bestowed a
+benefit upon a father whom I do not know, whom I never thought of?" And
+what will you say when, as is sometimes the case, you hate the father,
+and yet save his son? Can you be thought to have bestowed a benefit upon
+one whom you hated most bitterly while you were bestowing it?
+
+However, if I were to lay aside the bickering of dialogue, and answer
+you as a lawyer, I should say that you ought to consider the intention
+of the giver, you must regard his benefit as bestowed upon the person
+upon whom he meant to bestow it. If he did it in honour of the father,
+then the father received the benefit; if he thought only of the son,
+then the father is not laid under any obligation: by the benefit which
+was conferred upon the son, even though the father derives pleasure from
+it. Should he, however, have an opportunity, he will himself wish to
+give you something, yet not as though he were forced to repay a debt,
+but rather as if he had grounds for beginning an exchange of favours.
+No return for a benefit ought to be demanded from the father of the
+receiver; if he does you any kindness in return for it, he should be
+regarded as, a righteous man, but not as a grateful one. For there is no
+end to it; if I bestow a benefit on the receiver's father, do I likewise
+bestow it upon his mother, his grandfather, his maternal uncle, his
+children, relations, friends, slaves, and country? Where, then, does
+a benefit begin to stop? for there follows it this endless chain of
+people, to whom it is hard to assign bounds, because they join it by
+degrees, and are always creeping on towards it.
+
+XX. A common question is, "Two brothers are at variance. If I save the
+life of one, do I confer a benefit upon the other, who will be sorry
+that his hated brother did not perish?" There can be no doubt that it is
+a benefit to do good to a man, even against that man's will, just as he,
+who against his own will does a man good, does not bestow a benefit upon
+him. "Do you," asks our adversary, "call that by which he is displeased
+and hurt a benefit?" Yes; many benefits have a harsh and forbidding
+appearance, such as cutting or burning to cure disease, or confining
+with chains. We must not consider whether a man is grieved at receiving
+a benefit, but whether he ought to rejoice: a coin is not bad because it
+is refused by a savage who is unacquainted with its proper stamp. A man
+receives a benefit even though he hates what is done, provided that it
+does him good, and that the giver bestowed it in order to do him good.
+It makes no difference if he receives a good thing in a bad spirit.
+Consider the converse of this. Suppose that a man hates his brother,
+though it is to his advantage to have a brother, and I kill this
+brother, this is not a benefit, though he may say that it is, and be
+glad of it. Our most artful enemies are those whom we thank for the
+wrongs which they do us.
+
+"I understand; a thing which does good is a benefit, a thing which does
+harm is not a benefit. Now I will suggest to you an act which neither
+does good nor harm, and yet is a benefit. Suppose that I find the corpse
+of some one's father in a wilderness, and bury it, then I certainly
+have done him no good, for what difference could it make to him in what
+manner his body decayed? Nor have I done any good to his son, for what
+advantage does he gain by my act?" I will tell you what he gains. He has
+by my means performed a solemn and necessary rite; I have performed a
+service for his father which he would have wished, nay, which it would
+have been his duty to have performed himself. Yet this act is not a
+benefit, if I merely yielded to those feelings of pity and kindliness
+which would make me bury any corpse whatever, but only if I recognized
+this body, and buried it, with the thought in my mind that I was doing
+this service to the son; but, by merely throwing earth over a dead
+stranger, I lay no one under an obligation for an act performed on
+general principles of humanity.
+
+It may be asked, "Why are you so careful in inquiring upon whom you
+bestow benefits, as though some day you meant to demand repayment of
+them? Some say that repayment should never be demanded; and they give
+the following reasons. An unworthy man will not repay the benefit which
+he has received, even if it be demanded of him, while a worthy man will
+do so of his own accord. Consequently, if you have bestowed it upon a
+good man, wait; do not outrage him by asking him for it, as though of
+his own accord he never would repay it. If you have bestowed it upon a
+bad man, suffer for it, but do not spoil your benefit by turning it
+into a loan. Moreover the law, by not authorizing you, forbids you,
+by implication, to demand the repayment of a benefit." All this is
+nonsense. As long as I am in no pressing need, as long as I am
+not forced by poverty, I will lose my benefits rather than ask for
+repayment; but if the lives of my children were at stake, if my wife
+were in danger, if my regard for the welfare of my country and for
+my own liberty were to force me to adopt a course which I disliked, I
+should overcome my delicacy, and openly declare that I had done all that
+I could to avoid the necessity of receiving help from an ungrateful man;
+the necessity of obtaining repayment of one's benefit will in the end
+overcome one's delicacy about asking for it. In the next place, when I
+bestow a benefit upon a good man, I do so with the intention of never
+demanding repayment, except in case of absolute necessity.
+
+XXI. "But," argues he, "by not authorizing you, the law forbids you to
+exact repayment." There are many things which are not enforced by any
+law or process, but which the conventions of society, which are stronger
+than any law, compel us to observe. There is no law forbidding us to
+divulge our friend's secrets; there is no law which bids us keep faith
+even with an enemy; pray what law is there which binds us to stand by
+what we have promised? There is none. Nevertheless I should remonstrate
+with one who did not keep a secret, and I should be indignant with one
+who pledged his word and broke it. "But," he argues, "you are turning a
+benefit into a loan." By no means, for I do not insist upon repayment,
+but only demand it; nay, I do not even demand it, but remind my friend
+of it. Even the direst need will not bring me to apply for help to one
+with whom I should have to undergo a long struggle.
+
+If there be any one so ungrateful that it is not sufficient to remind
+him of his debt, I should pass him over, and think that he did not
+deserve to be made grateful by force. A money-lender does not demand
+repayment from his debtors if he knows they have become bankrupt, and,
+to their shame, have nothing but shame left to lose; and I, like him,
+should pass over those who are openly and obstinately ungrateful, and
+would demand repayment only from those who were likely to give it me,
+not from those from whom I should have to extort it by force.
+
+XXII. There are many who cannot deny that they have received a benefit,
+yet cannot return it--men who are not good enough to be termed grateful,
+nor yet bad enough to be termed ungrateful; but who are dull and
+sluggish, backward debtors, though not defaulters. Such men as these I
+should not ask for repayment, but forcibly remind them of it, and, from
+a state of indifference, bring them back to their duty. They would at
+once reply, "Forgive me; I did not know, by Hercules, that you missed
+this, or I would have offered it of my own accord, I beg that you will
+not think me ungrateful; I remember your goodness to me." Why need I
+hesitate to make such men as these better to themselves and to me? I
+would prevent any one from doing wrong, if I were able; much more would
+I prevent a friend, both lest he should do wrong, and lest he should
+do wrong to me in particular. I bestow a second benefit upon him by not
+permitting him to be ungrateful; and I should not reproach him harshly
+with what I had done for him, but should speak as gently as I could. In
+order to afford him an opportunity of returning my kindness, I
+should refresh his remembrance of it, and ask for a benefit; he would
+understand that I was asking for repayment. Sometimes I would make use
+of somewhat severe language, if I had any hope that by it he might be
+amended; though I would not irritate a hopelessly ungrateful man, for
+fear that I might turn him into an enemy. If we spare the ungrateful
+even the affront of reminding them of their conduct, we shall render
+them' more backward in returning benefits; and although some might
+be cured of their evil ways, and be made into good men, if their
+consciences were stung by remorse, yet we shall allow them to perish for
+want of a word of warning, with which a father sometimes corrects
+his son, a wife brings back to herself an erring husband, or a man
+stimulates the wavering fidelity of his friend.
+
+XXIII. To awaken some men, it is only necessary to stir them, not to
+strike them; in like manner, with some men, the feeling of honour about
+returning a benefit is not extinct, but slumbering. Let us rouse it. "Do
+not," they will say, "make the kindness you have done me into a wrong:
+for it is a wrong, if you do not demand some return from me, and so make
+me ungrateful. What if I do not know what sort of repayment you wish
+for? if I am so occupied by business, and my attention is so much
+diverted to other subjects that I have not been able to watch for an
+opportunity of serving you? Point out to me what I can do for you, what
+you wish me to do. Why do you despair, before making a trial of me? Why
+are you in such haste to lose both your benefit and your friend? How can
+you tell whether I do not wish, or whether I do not know how to repay
+you: whether it be in intention or in opportunity that I am wanting?
+Make a trial of me." I would therefore remind him of what I had done,
+without bitterness, not in public, or in a reproachful manner, but so
+that he may think that he himself has remembered it rather than that it
+has been recalled to him.
+
+XXIV. One of Julius Caesar's veterans was once pleading before him
+against his neighbours, and the cause was going against him. "Do you
+remember, general," said he, "that in Spain you dislocated your ankle
+near the river Sucro [Footnote: Xucar]?" When Caesar said that he
+remembered it, he continued, "Do you remember that when, during the
+excessive heat, you wished to rest under a tree which afforded very
+little shade, as the ground in which that solitary tree grew was rough
+and rocky, one of your comrades spread his cloak under you?" Caesar
+answered, "Of course, I remember; indeed, I was perishing with thirst;
+and since was unable to walk to the nearest spring, I would have crawled
+thither on my hands and knees, had not my comrade, a brave and active
+man, brought me water in his helmet." "Could you, then, my general,
+recognize that man or that helmet?" Caesar replied that he could not
+remember the helmet, but that he could remember the man well; and he
+added, I fancy in anger at being led away to this old story in the midst
+of a judicial enquiry, "At any rate, you are not he." "I do not blame
+you, Caesar," answered the man, "for not recognizing me; for when this
+took place, I was unwounded; but afterwards, at the battle of Munda,
+my eye was struck out, and the bones of my skull crushed. Nor would
+you recognize that helmet if you saw it, for it was split by a Spanish
+sword." Caesar would not permit this man to be troubled with lawsuits,
+and presented his old soldier with the fields through which a village
+right of way had given rise to the dispute.
+
+XXV. In this case, what ought he to have done? Because his commander's
+memory was confused by a multitude of incidents, and because his
+position as the leader of vast armies did not permit him to notice
+individual soldiers, ought the man not to have asked for a return for
+the benefit which he had conferred? To act as he did is not so much to
+ask for a return as to take it when it lies in a convenient position
+ready for us, although we have to stretch out our hands in order to
+receive it. I shall therefore ask for the return of a benefit, whenever
+I am either reduced to great straits, or where by doing so I shall act
+to the advantage of him from whom I ask it. Tiberius Caesar, when some
+one addressed him with the words, "Do you remember....?" answered,
+before the man could mention any further proofs of former acquaintance,
+"I do not remember what I was." Why should it not be forbidden to demand
+of this man repayment of former favours? He had a motive for forgetting
+them: he denied all knowledge of his friends and comrades, and wished
+men only to see, to think, and to speak of him as emperor. He regarded
+his old friend as an impertinent meddler.
+
+We ought to be even more careful to choose a favorable opportunity when
+we ask for a benefit to be repaid to us than when we ask for one to
+be bestowed upon us. We must be temperate in our language, so that the
+grateful may not take offence, or the ungrateful pretend to do so. If we
+lived among wise men, it would be our duty to wait in silence until our
+benefits were returned. Yet even to wise men it would be better to give
+some hint of what our position required. We ask for help even from
+the gods themselves, from whose knowledge nothing is hid, although our
+prayers cannot alter their intentions towards us, but can only recall
+them to their minds. Homer's priest, [Il. i. 39 sqq.] I say, recounts
+even to the gods his duteous conduct and his pious care of their
+altars. The second best form of virtue is to be willing and able to take
+advice.[Hes. Op. 291.] A horse who is docile and prompt to obey can be
+guided hither and thither by the slightest movement of the reins. Very
+few men are led by their own reason: those who come next to the best are
+those who return to the right path in consequence of advice; and these
+we must not deprive of their guide. When our eyes are covered they still
+possess sight; but it is the light of day which, when admitted to them,
+summons them to perform their duty: tools lie idle, unless the workman
+uses them to take part in his work. Similarly men's minds contain a good
+feeling, which, however, lies torpid, either through luxury and disuse,
+or through ignorance of its duties. This we ought to render useful, and
+not to get into a passion with it, and leave it in its wrong doing, but
+bear with it patiently, just as schoolmasters bear patiently with the
+blunders of forgetful scholars; for as by the prompting of a word or two
+their memory is often recalled to the text of the speech which they
+have to repeat, so men's goodwill can be brought to return kindness by
+reminding them of it.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK VI.
+
+I.
+
+
+There are some things, my most excellent Liberalis, which lie completely
+outside of our actual life, and which we only inquire into in order to
+exercise our intellects, while others both give us pleasure while we are
+discovering them, and are of use when discovered. I will place all these
+in your hands; you, at your own discretion, may order them either to
+be investigated thoroughly, or to be reserved, and be used as agreeable
+interludes. Something will be gained even by those which you dismiss at
+once, for it is advantageous even to know what subjects are not worth
+learning. I shall be guided, therefore, by your face: according to its
+expression, I shall deal with some questions at greater length, and
+drive others out of court, and put an end to them at once.
+
+II. It is a question whether a benefit can be taken away from one by
+force. Some say that it cannot, because it is not a thing, but an act. A
+gift is not the same as the act of giving, any more than a sailor is the
+same as the act of sailing. A sick man and a disease are not the same
+thing, although no one can be ill without disease; and, similarly,
+a benefit itself is one thing, and what any of us receive through a
+benefit is another. The benefit itself is incorporeal, and never becomes
+invalid; but its subject-matter changes owners, and passes from hand to
+hand. So, when you take away from anyone what you have given him,
+you take away the subject-matter only of the benefit, not the benefit
+itself. Nature herself cannot recall what she has given. She may cease
+to bestow benefits, but cannot take them away: a man who dies, yet has
+lived; a man who becomes blind, nevertheless has seen. She can cut off
+her blessings from us in the future, but she cannot prevent our having
+enjoyed them in the past. We are frequently not able to enjoy a benefit
+for long, but the benefit is not thereby destroyed. Let Nature struggle
+as hard as she please, she cannot give herself retrospective action. A
+man may lose his house, his money, his property--everything to which the
+name of benefit can be given--yet the benefit itself will remain firm
+and unmoved; no power can prevent his benefactor's having bestowed them,
+or his having received them.
+
+III. I think that a fine passage in Rabirius's poem, where M. Antonius,
+seeing his fortune deserting him, nothing left him except the privilege
+of dying, and even that only on condition that he used it promptly,
+exclaims,
+
+  "What I have given, that I now possess!"
+
+How much he might have possessed, had he chosen! These are riches to be
+depended upon, which through all the turmoil of human life will remain
+steadfast; and the greater they are, the less envy they will attract.
+Why are you sparing of your property, as though it were your own? You
+are but the manager of it. All those treasures, which make you swell
+with pride, and soar above mere mortals, till you forget the weakness of
+your nature; all that which you lock up in iron-grated treasuries, and
+guard in arms, which you win from other men with their lives, and defend
+at the risk of your own; for which you launch fleets to dye the sea with
+blood, and shake the walls of cities, not knowing what arrows fortune
+may be preparing for you behind your back; to gain which you have so
+often violated all the ties of relationship, of friendship, and of
+colleagueship, till the whole world lies crushed between the two
+combatants: all these are not yours; they are a kind of deposit, which
+is on the point of passing into other hands: your enemies, or your
+heirs, who are little better, will seize upon them. "How," do you ask,
+"can you make them your own?" "By giving them away." Do, then, what is
+best for your own interests, and gain a sure enjoyment of them, which
+cannot be taken from you, making them at once more certainly yours, and
+more honorable to you. That which you esteem so highly, that by which
+you think that you are made rich and powerful, owns but the shabby title
+of "house," "slave," or "money;" but when you have given it away, it
+becomes a benefit.
+
+IV. "You admit," says our adversary, "that we sometimes are under no
+obligation to him from whom we have received a benefit. In that case it
+has been taken by force." Nay, there are many things which would cause
+us to cease to feel gratitude for a benefit, not because the benefit has
+been taken from me, but because it has been spoiled. Suppose that a man
+has defended me in a lawsuit, but has forcibly outraged my wife; he has
+not taken away the benefit which he conferred upon me, but by balancing
+it with an equivalent wrong, he has set me free from my debt; indeed, if
+he has injured me more than he had previously benefited me, he not only
+puts an end to my gratitude, but makes me free to revenge myself upon
+him, and to complain of him, when the wrong outweighs the benefit; in
+such a case the benefit is not taken away, but is overcome. Why, are
+not some fathers so cruel and so wicked that it is right and proper for
+their sons to turn away from them, and disown them? Yet, pray, have they
+taken away the life which they gave? No, but their unnatural conduct in
+later years has destroyed all the gratitude which was due to them for
+their original benefit. In these cases it is not a benefit itself, but
+the gratitude owing for a benefit which is taken away, and the result
+is, not that one does not possess the benefit, but that one is not laid
+under any obligation by it. It is as though a man were to lend me money,
+and then burn my house down; the advantage of the loan is balanced by
+the damage which he has caused: I do not repay him, and yet I am not
+in his debt. In like manner any one who may have acted kindly and
+generously to me, and who afterwards has shown himself haughty,
+insulting, and cruel, places me in just the same position as though I
+never had received anything from him: he has murdered his own benefits.
+Though the lease may remain in force, still a man does not continue to
+be a tenant if his landlord tramples down his crops, or cuts down his
+orchard; their contract is at an end, not because the landlord has
+received the rent which was agreed upon, but because he has made it
+impossible that he should receive it. So, too, a creditor often has to
+pay money to his debtor, should he have taken more property from him in
+other transactions than he claims as having lent him. The judge does not
+sit merely to decide between debtor and creditor, when he says, "You did
+lend the man money; but then, what followed? You have driven away his
+cattle, you have murdered his slave, you have in your possession plate
+which you have not paid for. After valuing what each has received,
+I order you, who came to this court as a creditor, to leave it as
+a debtor." In like manner a balance is struck between benefits and
+injuries. In many cases, I repeat, a benefit is not taken away from him
+who receives it, and yet it lays him under no obligation, if the giver
+has repented of giving it, called himself unhappy because he gave it,
+sighed or made a wry face while he gave it; if he thought that he was
+throwing it away rather than giving it, if he gave it to please himself,
+or to please any one except me, the receiver; if he persistently makes
+himself offensive by boasting of what he has done, if he brags of his
+gift everywhere, and makes it a misery to me, then indeed the benefit
+remains in my hands, but I owe him nothing for it, just as sums of money
+to which a creditor has no legal right are owed to him, but cannot be
+claimed by him.
+
+V. Though you have bestowed a benefit upon me, yet you have since
+done me a wrong; the benefit demanded gratitude, the wrong required
+vengeance: the result is that I do not owe you gratitude, nor do you
+owe me compensation--each is cancelled by the other. When we say, "I
+returned him his benefit," we do not mean that we restored to him the
+very thing which we had received, but something else in its place. To
+return is to give back one thing instead of another, because, of course,
+in all repayment it is not the thing itself, but its equivalent which
+is returned. We are said to have returned money even though we count out
+gold pieces instead of silver ones, or even if no money passes between
+us, but the transaction be effected verbally by the assignment of a
+debt.
+
+I think I see you say, "You are wasting your time; of what use is it
+to me to know whether what I do not owe to another still remains in my
+hands or not? These are like the ingenious subtleties of the lawyers,
+who declare that one cannot acquire an inheritance by prescription,
+but can only acquire those things of which the inheritance consists, as
+though there were any difference between the heritage and the things of
+which it consists. Rather decide this point for me, which may be of
+use. If the same man confers a benefit upon me, and afterwards does me
+a wrong, is it my duty to return the benefit to him, and nevertheless to
+avenge myself upon him, having, as it were, two distinct accounts open
+with him, or to mix them both together, and do nothing, leaving the
+benefit to be wiped out by the injury, the injury by the benefit? I see
+that the former course is adopted by the law of the land; you know
+best what the law may be among you Stoic philosophers in such a case. I
+suppose that you keep the action which I bring against another distinct
+from that which he Strings against me, and the two processes are not
+merged into one? For instance, if a man entrusts me with money, and
+afterwards robs me, I shall bring an action against him for theft, and
+he will bring one against me for unlawfully detaining his property?"
+
+VI. The cases which you have mentioned, my Liberalis, come under
+well-established laws, which it is necessary for us to follow. One law
+cannot be merged in another: each one proceeds its own way. There is a
+particular action which deals with deposits just as there is one which
+deals with theft. A benefit is subject to no law; it depends upon my
+own arbitration. I am at liberty to contrast the amount of good or
+harm which any one may have done me, and then to decide which of us is
+indebted to the other. In legal processes we ourselves have no power, we
+must go whither they lead us; in the case of a benefit the supreme
+power is mine, I pronounce sentence. Consequently I do not separate or
+distinguish between benefits and wrongs, but send them before the same
+judge. Unless I did so, you would bid me love and hate, give thanks and
+make complaints at the same time, which human nature does not admit of.
+I would rather compare the benefit and the injury with one another, and
+see whether there were any balance in my favour. If anybody puts lines
+of other writing upon my manuscript he conceals, though he does not take
+away, the letters which were there before, and in like manner a wrong
+coming after a benefit does not allow it to be seen.
+
+VII. Your face, by which I have agreed to be guided, now becomes
+wrinkled with frowns, as though I were straying too widely from the
+subject. You seem to say to me:
+
+ "Why steer to seaward?
+  Hither bend thy course,
+  Hug close the shore..."
+
+I do hug it as close as possible. So now, if you think that we have
+dwelt sufficiently upon this point, let us proceed to the consideration
+of the next--that is, whether we are at all indebted to any one who
+does us good without wishing to do so. I might have expressed this
+more clearly, if it were not right that the question should be somewhat
+obscurely stated, in order that by the distinction immediately following
+it may be shown that we mean to investigate the case both of him who
+does us good against his will, and that of him who does us good without
+knowing it. That a man who does us good by acting under compulsion does
+not thereby lay us under any obligation, is so clear, that no words
+are needed to prove it. Both this question, and any other of the like
+character which may be raised, can easily be settled if in each case we
+bear in mind that, for anything to be a benefit, it must reach us in the
+first place through some thought, and secondly through the thought of a
+friend and well-wisher. Therefore we do not feel any gratitude towards
+rivers, albeit they may bear large ships, afford an ample and unvarying
+stream for the conveyance of merchandise, or flow beauteously and full
+of fish through fertile fields. No one conceives himself to be indebted
+for a benefit to the Nile, any more than he would owe it a grudge if its
+waters flooded his fields to excess, and retired more slowly than usual;
+the wind does not bestow benefits, gentle and favorable though it
+may be, nor does wholesome and useful food; for he who would bestow a
+benefit upon me, must not only do me good, but must wish to do so. No
+obligation can therefore be incurred towards dumb animals; yet how many
+men have been saved from peril by the swiftness of a horse!--nor
+yet towards trees--yet how many sufferers from summer heat have been
+sheltered by the thick foliage of a tree! What difference can it make,
+whether I have profited by the act of one who did not know that he was
+doing me good, or one who could not know it, when in each case the will
+to do me good was wanting? You might as well bid me be grateful to a
+ship, a carriage, or a lance for saving me from danger, as bid me be
+grateful to a man who may have done me good by chance, but with no more
+intention of doing me good than those things could have.
+
+VIII. Some men may receive benefits without knowing it, but no man can
+bestow them without knowing it. Many sick persons have been cured by
+chance circumstances, which do not therefore become specific remedies;
+as, for instance, one man was restored to health by falling into a river
+during very cold weather, as another was set free from a quartan fever
+by means of a flogging, because the sudden terror turned his attention
+into a new channel, so that the dangerous hours passed unnoticed. Yet
+none of these are remedies, even though they may have been
+successful; and in like manner some men do us good, though they are
+unwilling--indeed, because they are unwilling to do so--yet we need not
+feel grateful to them as though we had received a benefit from them,
+because fortune has changed the evil which they intended into good. Do
+you suppose that I am indebted to a man who strikes my enemy with a blow
+which he aimed at me, who would have injured me had he not missed his
+mark? It often happens that by openly perjuring himself a man makes even
+trustworthy witnesses disbelieved, and renders his intended victim an
+object of compassion, as though he were being ruined by a conspiracy.
+Some have been saved by the very power which was exerted to crush
+them, and judges who would have condemned a man by law, have refused
+to condemn him by favour. Yet they did not confer a benefit upon the
+accused, although they rendered him a service, because we must
+consider at what the dart was aimed, not what it hits, and a benefit
+is distinguished from an injury not by its result, but by the spirit in
+which it was meant. By contradicting himself, by irritating the judge by
+his arrogance, or by rashly allowing his whole case to depend upon the
+testimony of one witness, my opponent may have saved my cause. I do not
+consider whether his mistakes benefited me or not, for he wished me ill.
+
+IX. In order that I may be grateful, I must wish to do what my
+benefactor must have wished in order that he might bestow a benefit. Can
+anything be more unjust than to bear a grudge against a person who may
+have trodden upon one's foot in a crowd, or splashed one, or pushed one
+the way which one did not wish to go? Yet it was by his act that we were
+injured, and we only refrain from complaining of him, because he did not
+know what he was doing. The same reason makes it possible for men to do
+us good without conferring benefits upon us, or to harm us without doing
+us wrong, because it is intention which distinguishes our friends
+from our enemies. How many have been saved from service in the army by
+sickness! Some men have been saved from sharing the fall of their house,
+by being brought up upon their recognizances to a court of law by their
+enemies; some have been saved by ship-wreck from falling into the hands
+of pirates; yet we do not feel grateful to such things, because chance
+has no feeling of the service it renders, nor are we grateful to our
+enemy, though his lawsuit, while it harassed and detained us, still
+saved our lives. Nothing can be a benefit which does not proceed from
+good will, and which is not meant as such by the giver. If any one
+does me a service, without knowing it, I am under no obligation to him;
+should he do so, meaning to injure me, I shall imitate his conduct.
+
+X. Let us turn our attention to the first of these. Can you desire me to
+do anything to express my gratitude to a man who did nothing in order to
+confer a benefit upon me? Passing on to the next, do you wish me to show
+my gratitude to such a man, and of my own will to return to him what I
+received from him against his will? What am I to say of the third, he
+who, meaning to do an injury, blunders into bestowing a benefit? That
+you should have wished to confer a benefit upon me is not sufficient
+to render me grateful; but that you should have wished not to do so is
+enough to set me free from any obligation to you. A mere wish does not
+constitute a benefit; and just as the best and heartiest wish is not a
+benefit when fortune prevents its being carried into effect, neither is
+what fortune bestows upon us a benefit, unless good wishes preceded
+it. In order to lay me under an obligation, you must not merely do me a
+service, but you must do so intentionally.
+
+XI. Cleanthes makes use of the following example:--"I sent," says he,
+"two slaves to look for Plato and bring him to me from the Academy. One
+of them searched through the whole of the colonnade, and every other
+place in which he thought that he was likely to be found, and returned
+home alike weary and unsuccessful; the other sat down among the audience
+of a mountebank close by, and, while amusing himself in the society of
+other slaves like a careless vagabond as he was, found Plato, without
+seeking for him, as he happened to pass that way. We ought," says he,
+"to praise that slave who, as far as lay in his power, did what he was
+ordered, and we ought to punish the other whose laziness turned out so
+fortunate." It is goodwill alone which does one real service; let us
+then consider under what conditions it lays us under obligations. It is
+not enough to wish a man well, without doing him good; nor is it enough
+to do him good without wishing him well. Suppose that some one wished to
+give me a present, but did not give it; I have his good will, but I
+do not have his benefit, which consists of subject matter and goodwill
+together. I owe nothing to one who wished to lend me money but did not
+do so, and in like manner I shall be the friend of one who wished but
+was not able to bestow a benefit upon me, but I shall not be under any
+obligation to him. I also shall wish to bestow something upon him, even
+as he did upon me; but if fortune be more favorable to me than to him,
+and I succeed in bestowing something upon him, my doing so will be a
+benefit bestowed upon him, not a repayment out of gratitude for what he
+did for me. It will become his duty to be grateful to me; I shall have
+begun the interchange of benefits; the series must be counted from my
+act.
+
+XII. I already understand what you wish to ask; there is no need for you
+to say anything, your countenance speaks for you. "If any one does us
+good for his own sake, are we," you ask, "under an obligation to him? I
+often hear you complain that there are some things which men make use
+of themselves, but which they put down to the account of others." I will
+tell you, my Liberalis; but first let me distinguish between the two
+parts of your question, and separate what is fair from what is unfair.
+It makes a great difference whether any one bestows a benefit upon us
+for his own sake, or whether he does so partly for his own sake and
+partly for ours. He who looks only to his own interests, and who does us
+good because he cannot otherwise make a profit for himself, seems to
+me to be like the farmer who provides winter and summer fodder for his
+flocks, or like the man who feeds up the captives whom he has bought
+in order that they may fetch a better price in the slave market, or who
+crams and curry-combs fat oxen for sale; or like the keeper of a
+school of arms, who takes great pains in exercising and equipping his
+gladiators. As Cleanthes says, there is a great difference between
+benefits and trade.
+
+XIII. On the other hand, I am not so unjust as to feel no gratitude to
+a man, because, while helping me, he helped himself also; for I do
+not insist upon his consulting my interests to the exclusion of his
+own--nay, I should prefer that the benefit which I receive may be of
+even greater advantage to the giver, provided that he thought of us
+both when giving it, and meant to divide it between me and himself. Even
+should he possess the larger portion of it, still, if he admits me to
+a share, if he meant it for both of us, I am not only unjust but
+ungrateful, if I do not rejoice in what has benefited me benefiting him
+also. It is the essence of spitefulness to say that nothing can be a
+benefit which does not cause some inconvenience to the giver.
+
+As for him who bestows a benefit for his own sake, I should say to him,
+"You have made use of me, and how can you say that you have bestowed a
+benefit upon me, rather than I upon you?" "Suppose," answers he, "that I
+cannot obtain a public office except by ransoming ten citizens out of a
+great number of captives, will you owe me nothing for setting you free
+from slavery and bondage? Yet I shall do so for my own sake." To this I
+should answer, "You do this partly for my sake, partly for your own.
+It is for your own sake that you ransom captives, but it is for my sake
+that you ransom me; for to serve your purpose it would be enough for you
+to ransom any one. I am therefore your debtor, not for ransoming me
+but for choosing me, since you might have attained the same result by
+ransoming some one else instead of me. You divide the advantages of the
+act between yourself and me, and you confer upon me a benefit by which
+both of us profit. What you do entirely for my sake is, that you choose
+me in preference to others. If therefore you were to be made praetor for
+ransoming ten captives, and there were only ten of us captives, none of
+us would be under any obligation to you, because there is nothing for
+which you can ask any one of us to give you credit apart from your own
+advantage. I do not regard a benefit jealously and wish it to be given
+to myself alone, but I wish to have a share in it."
+
+XIV. "Well, then," says he, "suppose that I were to order all your names
+to be put into a ballot-box, and that your name was drawn among those
+who were to be ransomed, would you owe me nothing?" Yes, I should owe
+you something, but very little: how little, I will explain to you. By so
+doing you do something for my sake, in that you grant me the chance of
+being ransomed; I owe to fortune that my name was drawn, all I owe
+to you is that my name could be drawn. You have given me the means
+of obtaining your benefit. For the greater part of that benefit I am
+indebted to fortune; that I could be so indebted, I owe to you.
+
+I shall take no notice whatever of those whose benefits are bestowed
+in a mercenary spirit, who do not consider to whom, but upon what terms
+they give, whose benefits are entirely selfish. Suppose that some one
+sells me corn; I cannot live unless I buy it; yet I do not owe my life
+to him because I have bought it. I do not consider how essential it was
+to me, and that I could not live without it; but how little thanks are
+due for it, since I could not have had it without paying for it, and
+since the merchant who imported it did not consider how much good he
+would do me, but how much he would gain for himself, I owe nothing for
+what I have bought and paid for.
+
+XV. "According to this reasoning," says my opponent, "you would say
+that you owe nothing to a physician beyond his paltry fee, nor to your
+teacher, because you have paid him some money; yet these persons are all
+held very dear, and are very much respected." In answer to this I should
+urge that some things are of greater value than the price which we pay
+for them. You buy of a physician life and good health, the value of
+which cannot be estimated in money; from a teacher of the liberal
+sciences you buy the education of a gentleman and mental culture;
+therefore you pay these persons the price, not of what they give us, but
+of their trouble in giving it; you pay them for devoting their attention
+to us, for disregarding their own affairs to attend to us: they receive
+the price, not of their services, but of the expenditure of their time.
+Yet this may be more truly stated in another way, which I will at once
+lay before you, having first pointed out how the above may be confuted.
+Our adversary would say, "If some things are of greater value than the
+price which we pay for them, then, though you may have bought them, you
+still owe me something more for them." I answer, in the first place,
+what does their real value matter, since the buyer and seller have
+settled the price between them? Next, I did not buy it at it's own
+price, but at yours. "It is," you say, "worth more than its sale price."
+True, but it cannot be sold for more. The price of everything varies
+according to circumstances; after you have well praised your wares, they
+are worth only the highest price at which you can sell them; a man who
+buys things cheap is not on that account under any obligation to the
+seller. In the next place, even if they are worth more, there is no
+generosity in your letting them go for less, since the price is settled
+by custom and the rate of the market, not by the uses and powers of the
+merchandise. What would you state to be the proper payment of a man who
+crosses the seas, holding a true course through the midst of the waves
+after the land has sunk out of sight, who foresees coming storms, and
+suddenly, when no one expects danger, orders sails to be furled, yards
+to be lowered, and the crew to stand at their posts ready to meet the
+fury of the unexpected gale? and yet the price of such great skill is
+fully paid for by the passage money. At what sum can you estimate the
+value of a lodging in a wilderness, of a shelter in the rain, of a bath
+or fire in cold weather? Yet I know on what terms I shall be supplied
+with these when I enter an inn. How much the man does for us who props
+our house when it is about to fall, and who, with a skill beyond belief,
+suspends in the air a block of building which has begun to crack at the
+foundation; yet we can contract for underpinning at a fixed and cheap
+rate. The city wall keeps us safe from our enemies, and from sudden
+inroads of brigands; yet it is, well known how much a day a smith
+would earn for erecting towers and scaffoldings [Footnote: See
+Viollet-le-Duc's "Dictionnaire d'Architecture," articles "Architecture
+Militaire" and "Hourds," for the probable meaning of "Propugnacula."]to
+provide for the public safety.
+
+XVI. I might go on for ever collecting instances to prove that valuable
+things are sold at a low price. What then? why is it that I owe
+something extra both to my physician and to my teacher, and that I do
+not acquit myself of all obligation to them by paying them their fee? It
+is because they pass from physicians and teachers into friends, and lay
+us under obligations, not by the skill which they sell to us, but by
+kindly and familiar good will. If my physician does no more than feel
+my pulse and class me among those whom he sees in his daily rounds,
+pointing out what I ought to do or to avoid without any personal
+interest, then I owe him no more than his fee, because he views me with
+the eye not of a friend, but of a commander. [Footnote: I read "Nbn
+tamquam amicus videt sed tamquam imperator."] Neither have I any reason
+for loving my teacher, if he has regarded me merely as one of the mass
+of his scholars, and has not thought me worthy of taking especial pains
+with by myself, if he has never fixed his attention upon me, and if when
+he discharged his knowledge on the public, I might be said rather to
+have picked it up than to have learnt it from him. What then is our
+reason for owing them much? It is, not that what they have sold us is
+worth more than we paid for it, but that they have given something to us
+personally. Suppose that my physician has spent more consideration upon
+my case than was professionally necessary; that it was for me, not for
+his own credit, that he feared: that he was not satisfied with pointing
+out remedies, but himself applied them, that he sat by my bedside among
+my anxious friends, and came to see me at the crises of my disorder;
+that no service was too troublesome or too disgusting for him to
+perform; that he did not hear my groans unmoved; that among the numbers
+who called for him I was his favourite case; and that he gave the others
+only so much time as his care of my health permitted him: I should feel
+obliged to such a man not as to a physician, but as to a friend. Suppose
+again that my teacher endured labour and weariness in instructing me;
+that he taught me something more than is taught by all masters alike;
+that he roused my better feelings by his encouragement, and that at
+one time he would raise my spirits by praise, and at another warn me
+to shake off slothfulness: that he laid his hand, as it were, upon my
+latent and torpid powers of intellect and drew them out into the light
+of day; that he did not stingily dole out to me what he knew, in order
+that he might be wanted for a longer time, but was eager, if possible,
+to pour all his learning into me; then I am ungrateful, if I do not love
+him as much as I love my nearest relatives and my dearest friends.
+
+XVII. We give something additional even to those who teach the meanest
+trades, if their efforts appear to be extraordinary; we bestow a
+gratuity upon pilots, upon workmen who deal with the commonest materials
+and hire themselves out by the day. In the noblest arts, however, those
+which either preserve or beautify our lives, a man would be ungrateful
+who thinks he owes the artist no more than he bargained for. Besides
+this, the teaching of such learning as we have spoken of blends mind
+with mind; now when this takes place, both in the case of the physician
+and of the teacher the price of his work is paid, but that of his mind
+remains owing.
+
+XVIII. Plato once crossed a river, and as the ferryman did not ask him
+for anything, he supposed that he had let him pass free out of respect,
+and said that the ferryman had laid Plato under an obligation. Shortly
+afterwards, seeing the ferryman take one person after another across the
+river with the same pains, and without charging anything, Plato declared
+that the ferryman had not laid him under an obligation. If you wish me
+to be grateful for what you give, you must not merely give it to me, but
+show that you mean it specially for me; you cannot make any claim upon
+one for having given him what you fling away broad-cast among the crowd.
+What then? shall I owe you nothing for it? Nothing, as an individual; I
+will pay, when the rest of mankind do, what I owe no more than they.
+
+XIX. "Do you say," inquires my opponent, "that he who carries me gratis
+in a boat across the river Po, does not bestow any benefit upon me?" I
+do. He does me some good, but he does not bestow a benefit upon me; for
+he does it for his own sake, or at any rate not for mine; in short, he
+himself does not imagine that he is bestowing a benefit upon me, but
+does it for the credit of the State, or of the neighbourhood, or of
+himself, and expects some return for doing so, different from what he
+would receive from individual passengers. "Well," asks my opponent, "if
+the emperor were to grant the franchise to all the Gauls, or exemption,
+from taxes to all the Spaniards, would each individual of them owe him
+nothing on that account?" Of course he would: but he would be indebted
+to him, not as having personally received a benefit intended for himself
+alone, but as a partaker in one conferred upon his nation. He would
+argue, "The emperor had no thought of me at the time when he benefited
+us all; he did not care to give me the franchise separately, he did not
+fix his attention upon me; why then should I be grateful to one who did
+not have me in his mind when he was thinking of doing what he did? In
+answer to this, I say that when he thought of doing good to all the
+Gauls, he thought of doing good to me also, for I was a Gaul, and he
+included me under my national, if not under my personal appellation. In
+like manner, I should feel grateful to him, not as for a personal, but
+for a general benefit; being only one of the people, I should regard
+the debt of gratitude as incurred, not by myself, but by my country, and
+should not pay it myself, but only contribute my share towards doing so.
+I do not call a man my creditor because he has lent money to my country,
+nor should I include that money in a schedule of my debts were I either
+a candidate for a public office, or a defendant in the courts; yet I
+would pay my share towards extinguishing such a debt. Similarly, I deny
+that I am laid under an obligation by a gift bestowed upon my entire
+nation, because although the giver gave it to me, yet he did not do so
+for my sake, but gave it without knowing whether he was giving it to me
+or not: nevertheless I should feel that I owed something for the
+gift, because it did reach me, though not directly. To lay me under an
+obligation, a thing must be done for my sake alone."
+
+XX. "According to this," argues our opponent, "you are under no
+obligation to the sun or the moon; for they do not move for your sake
+alone." No, but since they move with the object of preserving the
+balance of the universe, they move for my sake also, seeing that I am
+a fraction of the universe. Besides, our position and theirs is not the
+same, for he who does me good in order that he may by my means do good
+to himself, does not bestow a benefit upon me, because he merely makes
+use of me as an instrument for his own advantage; whereas the sun and
+the moon, even if they do us good for their own sakes, still cannot do
+good to us in order that by our means they may do good to themselves,
+for what is there which we can bestow upon them?
+
+XXI. "I should be sure," replies he, "that the sun and the moon wished
+to do us good, if they were able to refuse to do so; but they cannot
+help moving as they do. In short, let them stop and discontinue their
+work."
+
+See now, in how many ways this argument may be refuted. One who cannot
+refuse to do a thing may nevertheless wish to do it; indeed there is no
+greater proof of a fixed desire to do anything, than not to be able to
+alter one's determination. A good man cannot leave undone what he does:
+for unless he does it he will not be a good man. Is a good man, then,
+not able to bestow a benefit, because he does what he ought to do, and
+is not able not to do what he ought to do? Besides this, it makes
+a great difference whether you say, "He is not able not to do this,
+because he is forced to do it," or "He is not able to wish not to do
+it;" for, if he could not help doing it, then I am not indebted for it
+to him, but to the person who forced him to do it; if he could not help
+wishing for it because he had nothing better to wish for, then it is he
+who forces himself to do it, and in this case the debt which as acting
+under compulsion he could not claim, is due to him as compelling
+himself.
+
+"Let the sun and moon cease to wish to benefit us," says our adversary.
+I answer, "Remember what has been said. Who can be so crazy as to refuse
+the name of free-will to that which has no danger of ceasing to act, and
+of adopting the opposite course, since, on the contrary, he whose will
+is fixed for ever, must be thought to wish more earnestly than any one
+else. Surely if he, who may at any moment change his mind, can be said
+to wish, we must not deny the existence of will in a being whose nature
+does not admit of change of mind."
+
+XXII. "Well," says he "let them stop, if it be possible." What you say
+is this:--"Let all those heavenly bodies, placed as they are at vast
+distances from each other, and arranged to preserve the balance of the
+universe, leave their appointed posts: let sudden confusion arise,
+so that constellations may collide with constellations, that the
+established harmony of all things may be destroyed and the works of God
+be shaken into ruin; let the whole frame of the rapidly moving heavenly
+bodies abandon in mid career those movements which we were assured would
+endure for ages, and let those which now by their regular advance and
+retreat keep the world at a moderate temperature, be instantly consumed
+by fire, so that instead of the infinite variety of the seasons all may
+be reduced to one uniform condition; let fire rage everywhere, followed
+by dull night, and let the bottomless abyss swallow up all the gods." Is
+it worth while to destroy all this merely in order to refute you? Even
+though you do not wish it, they do you good, and they wheel in their
+courses for your sake, though their motion may be due to some earlier
+and more important cause.
+
+XXIII. Besides this, the gods act under no external constraint, but
+their own will is a law to them for all time. They have established an
+order which is not to be changed, and consequently it is impossible that
+they should appear to be likely to do anything against their will, since
+they wish to continue doing whatever they cannot cease from doing, and
+they never regret their original decision, No doubt it is impossible for
+them to stop short, or to desert to the other side, but it is so for no
+other reason than that their own force holds them to their purpose. It
+is from no weakness that they persevere; no, they have no mind to leave
+the best course, and by this it is fated that they should proceed. When,
+at the time of the original creation, they arranged the entire universe,
+they paid attention to us as well as to the rest, and took thought about
+the human race; and for this reason we cannot suppose that it is merely
+for their own pleasure that they move in their orbits and display their
+work since we also are a part of that work. We are, therefore; under
+an obligation to the sun and moon and the rest of the heavenly host,
+because, although they may rise in order to bestow more important
+benefits than those which we receive from them, yet they do bestow these
+upon us as they pass on their way to greater things. Besides this, they
+assist us of set purpose, and, therefore, lay us under an obligation,
+because we do not in their case stumble by chance upon a benefit
+bestowed by one who knew not what he was doing, but they knew that we
+should receive from them the advantages which we do; so that, though
+they may have some higher aim, though the result of their movements may
+be something of greater importance than the preservation of the human
+race, yet from the beginning thought has been directed to our comforts,
+and the scheme of the world has been arranged in a fashion which proves
+that our interests were neither their least nor last concern. It is our
+duty to show filial love for our parents, although many of them had no
+thought of children when they married. Not so with the gods: they cannot
+but have known what they were doing when they furnished mankind with
+food and comforts. Those for whose advantage so much was created, could
+not have been created without design. Nature conceived the idea of us
+before she formed us, and, indeed, we are no such trifling piece of work
+as could have fallen from her hands unheeded. See how great privileges
+she has bestowed upon us, how far beyond the human race the empire of
+mankind extends; consider how widely she allows us to roam, not having
+restricted us to the land alone, but permitted us to traverse every part
+of herself; consider, too, the audacity of our intellect, the only one
+which knows of the gods or seeks for them, and how we can raise our mind
+high above the earth, and commune with those divine influences: you will
+perceive that man is not a hurriedly put together, or an unstudied piece
+of work. Among her noblest products nature has none of which she can
+boast more than man, and assuredly no other which can comprehend her
+boast. What madness is this, to call the gods in question for their
+bounty? If a man declares that he has received nothing when he is
+receiving all the while, and from those who will always be giving
+without ever receiving anything in return, how will he be grateful to
+those whose kindness cannot be returned without expense? and how great a
+mistake is it not to be thankful to a giver, because he is good even to
+him who disowns him, or to use the fact of his bounty being poured upon
+us in an uninterrupted stream, as an argument to prove that he cannot
+help bestowing it. Suppose that such men as these say, "I do not want
+it," "Let him keep it to himself," "Who asks him for it?" and so forth,
+with all the other speeches of insolent minds: still, he whose bounty
+reaches you, although you say that it does not, lays you under an
+obligation nevertheless; indeed, perhaps the greatest part of the
+benefit which he bestows is that he is ready to give even when you are
+complaining against him.
+
+XXIV. Do you not see how parents force children during their infancy
+to undergo what is useful for their health? Though the children cry and
+struggle, they swathe them and bind their limbs straight lest premature
+liberty should make them grow crooked, afterwards instill into them a
+liberal education, threatening those who are unwilling to learn, and
+finally, if spirited young men do not conduct themselves frugally,
+modestly, and respectably, they compel them to do so. Force and harsh
+measures are used even to youths who have grown up and are their own
+masters, if they, either from fear or from insolence, refuse to take
+what is good for them. Thus the greatest benefits that we receive,
+we receive either without knowing it, or against our will, from our
+parents.
+
+XXV. Those persons who are ungrateful and repudiate benefits, not
+because they do not wish to receive them, but in order that they may not
+be laid under an obligation for them, are like those who fall into the
+opposite extreme, and are over grateful, who pray that some trouble or
+misfortune may befall their benefactors to give them an opportunity
+of proving how gratefully they remember the benefit which they have
+received. It is a question whether they are right, and show a truly
+dutiful feeling; their state of mind is morbid, like that of frantic
+lovers who long for their mistress to be exiled, that they may accompany
+her when she leaves her country forsaken by all her friends, or that she
+may be poor in order that she may the more need what they give her, or
+who long that she may be ill in order that they may sit by her bedside,
+and who, in short, out of sheer love form the same wishes as her enemies
+would wish for her. Thus the results of hatred and of frantic love are
+very nearly the same; and these lovers are very like those who hope that
+their friends may meet with difficulties which they may remove, and who
+thus do a wrong that they may bestow a benefit, whereas it would have
+been much better for them to do nothing, than by a crime to gain an
+opportunity of doing good service. What should we say of a pilot who
+prayed to the gods for dreadful storms and tempests, in order that
+danger might make his skill more highly esteemed? what of a general who
+should pray that a vast number of the enemy surround his camp, fill
+the ditches by a sudden charge, tear down the rampart round his
+panic-stricken army, and plant its hostile standards at the very gates,
+in order that he might gain more glory by restoring his broken ranks and
+shattered fortunes? All such men confer their benefits upon us by odious
+means, for they beg the gods to harm those whom they mean to help, and
+wish them to be struck down before they raise them up; it is a cruel
+feeling, brought about by a distorted sense of gratitude, to wish evil
+to befall one whom one is bound in honour to succour.
+
+XXVI. "My wish," argues our opponent, "does him no harm, because when
+I wish for the danger I wish for the rescue at the same time." What you
+mean by this is not that you do no wrong, but that you do less than if
+you wished that the danger might befall him, without wishing for the
+rescue. It is wicked to throw a man into the water in order that you may
+pull him out, to throw him down that you may raise him up, or to shut
+him up that you may release him. You do not bestow a benefit upon a man
+by ceasing to wrong him, nor can it ever be a piece of good service to
+anyone to remove from him a burden which you yourself imposed on him.
+True, you may cure the hurt which you inflict, but I had rather that you
+did not hurt me at all. You may gain my gratitude by curing me because I
+am wounded, but not by wounding me in order that you may cure me: no man
+likes scars except as compared with wounds, which he is glad to see thus
+healed, though he had rather not have received them. It would be cruel
+to wish such things to befall one from whom you had never received a
+kindness; how much more cruel is it to wish that they may befall one in
+whose debt you are.
+
+XXVII. "I pray," replies he, "at the same time, that I may be able to
+help him." In the first place, if I stop you short in the middle of your
+prayer, it shows at once that you are ungrateful: I have not yet heard
+what you wish to do for him; I have heard what you wish him to suffer.
+You pray that anxiety and fear and even worse evil than this may come
+upon him. You desire that he may need aid: this is to his disadvantage;
+you desire that he may need your aid: this is to your advantage. You do
+not wish to help him, but to be set free from your obligation to him:
+for when you are eager to repay your debt in such a way as this, you
+merely wish to be set free from the debt, not to repay it. So the only
+part of your wish that could be thought honourable proves to be the base
+and ungrateful feeling of unwillingness to lie under an obligation: for
+what you wish for is, not that you may have an opportunity of repaying
+his kindness, but that he may be forced to beg you to do him a kindness.
+You make yourself the superior, and you wickedly degrade beneath your
+feet the man who has done you good service. How much better would it be
+to remain in his debt in an honourable and friendly manner, than to seek
+to discharge the debt by these evil means! You would be less to blame if
+you denied that you had received it, for your benefactor would then
+lose nothing more than what he gave you, whereas now you wish him to be
+rendered inferior to you, and brought by the loss of his property and
+social position into a condition below his own benefits. Do you think
+yourself grateful? Just utter your wishes in the hearing of him to whom
+you wish to do good. Do you call that a prayer for his welfare, which
+can be divided between his friend and his enemy, which, if the last part
+were omitted, you would not doubt was pronounced, by one who opposed and
+hated him? Enemies in war have sometimes wished to capture certain
+towns in order to spare them, or to conquer certain persons in order
+to pardon, them, yet these were the wishes of enemies, and what was the
+kindest part of them began by cruelty. Finally, what sort of prayers do
+you think those can be which he, on whose behalf they are made, hopes
+more earnestly than any one else may not be granted? In hoping that
+the gods may injure a man, and that you may help him, you deal most
+dishonourably with him, and you do not treat the gods themselves fairly,
+for you give them the odious part to play, and reserve the generous one
+for yourself: the gods must do him wrong in order that you may do him
+a service. If you were to suborn an informer to accuse a man, and
+afterwards withdrew him, if you engaged a man in a law suit and
+afterwards gave it up, no one would hesitate to call you a villain: what
+difference does it make, whether you attempt to do this by chicanery
+or by prayer, unless it be that by prayer you raise up more powerful
+enemies to him than by the other means? You cannot say "Why, what harm
+do I do him?" your prayer is either futile or harmful, indeed it is
+harmful even though nothing comes of it. You do your friend wrong by
+wishing him harm: you must thank the gods that you do him no harm. The
+fact of your wishing it is enough: we ought to be just as angry with you
+as if you had effected it.
+
+XXVIII. "If," argues our adversary, "my prayers had any efficacy, they
+would also have been efficacious to save him from danger." In the first
+place, I reply, the danger into which you wish me to fall is certain,
+the help which I should receive is uncertain. Or call them both certain;
+it is that which injures me that comes first. Besides, YOU understand
+the terms of your wish; _I_ shall be tossed by the storm without being
+sure that I have a haven of rest at hand.
+
+Think what torture it must have been to me, even if I receive your help,
+to have stood in need of it: if I escape safely, to have trembled for
+myself; if I be acquitted, to have had to plead my cause. To escape from
+fear, however great it may be, can never be so pleasant as to live in
+sound unassailable safety. Pray that you may return my kindnesses when I
+need their return, but do not pray that I may need them. You would have
+done what you prayed for, had it been in your power.
+
+XXIX. How far more honourable would a prayer of this sort be: "I pray
+that he may remain in such a position as that he may always bestow
+benefits and never need them: may he be attended by the means of giving
+and helping, of which he makes such a bountiful use; may he never want
+benefits to bestow, or be sorry for any which he has bestowed; may his
+nature, fitted as it is for acts of pity, goodness, and clemency, be
+stimulated and brought out by numbers of grateful persons, whom I trust
+he will find without needing to make trial of their gratitude; may
+he refuse to be reconciled to no one, and may no one require to be
+reconciled to him: may fortune so uniformly continue to favour him that
+no one may be able to return his kindness in any way except by feeling
+grateful to him."
+
+How far more proper are such prayers as these, which do not put you off
+to some distant opportunity, but express your gratitude at once? What is
+there to prevent your returning your benefactor's kindness, even while
+he is in prosperity? How many ways are there by which we can repay what
+we owe even to the affluent--for instance, by honest advice, by constant
+intercourse, by courteous conversation, pleasing him without flattering
+him, by listening attentively to any subject which he may wish to
+discuss, by keeping safe any secret that he may impart to us, and by
+social intercourse. There is no one so highly placed by fortune as not
+to want a friend all the more because he wants nothing.
+
+XXX. The other is a melancholy opportunity, and one which we ought
+always to pray may be kept far from us: must the gods be angry with
+a man in order that you may prove your gratitude to him? Do you not
+perceive that you are doing wrong, from the very fact that those to
+whom you are ungrateful fare better? Call up before your mind dungeons,
+chains, wretchedness, slavery, war, poverty: these are the opportunities
+for which you pray; if any one has any dealings with you, it is by means
+of these that you square your account. Why not rather wish that he to
+whom you owe most may be powerful and happy? for, as I have just said,
+what is there to prevent your returning the kindness even of those
+who enjoy the greatest prosperity? to do which, ample and various
+opportunities will present themselves to you, What! do you not know that
+a debt can be paid even to a rich man? Nor will I trouble you with many
+instances of what you may do. Though a man's riches and prosperity may
+prevent your making him any other repayment, I will show you what the
+highest in the land stand in need of, what is wanting to those who
+possess everything. They want a man to speak the truth, to save them
+from the organized mass of falsehood by which they are beset, which so
+bewilders them with lies that the habit of hearing only what is pleasant
+instead of what is true, prevents their knowing what truth really is. Do
+you not see how such persons are driven to ruin by the want of candour
+among their friends, whose loyalty has degenerated into slavish
+obsequiousness? No one, when giving them his advice, tells them what he
+really thinks, but each vies with the other in flattery; and while the
+man's friends make it their only object to see who can most pleasantly
+deceive him, he himself is ignorant of his real powers, and, believing
+himself to be as great a man as he is told that he is, plunges the State
+in useless wars, which bring disasters upon it, breaks off a useful and
+necessary peace, and, through a passion of anger which no one checks,
+spills the blood of numbers of people, and at last sheds his own.
+Such persons assert what has never been investigated as certain facts,
+consider that to modify their opinion is as dishonourable as to be
+conquered, believe that institutions which are just flickering out of
+existence will last for ever, and, thus overturn great States, to the
+destruction of themselves and all who are connected with them. Living
+as they do in a fool's paradise, resplendent with unreal and short-lived
+advantages, they forget that, as soon as they put it out of their power
+to hear the truth, there is no limit to the misfortunes which they may
+expect.
+
+XXXI. When Xerxes declared war against Greece, all his courtiers
+encouraged his boastful temper, which forgot how unsubstantial his
+grounds for confidence were. One declared that the Greeks would not
+endure to hear the news of the declaration of war, and would take to
+flight at the first rumour of his approach; another, that with such a
+vast army Greece could not only be conquered, but utterly overwhelmed,
+and that it was rather to be feared that they would find the Greek
+cities empty and abandoned, and that the panic flight of the enemy
+would leave them only vast deserts, where no use could be made of their
+enormous forces. Another told him that the world was hardly large enough
+to contain him, that the seas were too narrow for his fleets, the camps
+would not take in his armies, the plains were not wide enough to deploy
+his cavalry in, and that the sky itself was scarcely large enough to
+enable all his troops to hurl their darts at once. While much boasting
+of this sort was going on around him, raising his already overweening
+self-confidence to a frantic pitch, Demaratus, the Lacedaemonian,
+alone told him that the disorganized and unwieldy multitude in which he
+trusted, was in itself a danger to its chief, because it possessed
+only weight without strength; for an army which is too large cannot
+be governed, and one which cannot be governed, cannot long exist. "The
+Lacedaemonians," said he, "will meet you upon the first mountain in
+Greece, and will give you a taste of their quality. All these thousands
+of nations of yours will be held in check by three hundred men: they
+will stand firm at their posts, they will defend the passes entrusted to
+them with their weapons, and block them up with their bodies: all Asia
+will not force them to give way; few as they are, they will stop all
+this terrible invasion, attempted though it be by nearly the whole human
+race. Though the laws of nature may give way to you, and enable you to
+pass from Europe to Asia, yet you will stop short in a bypath; consider
+what your losses will be afterwards, when you have reckoned up the price
+which you have to pay for the pass of Thermopylae; when you learn that
+your march can be stayed, you will discover that you may be put to
+flight. The Greeks will yield up many parts of their country to you, as
+if they were swept out of them by the first terrible rush of a mountain
+torrent; afterwards they will rise against you from all quarters and
+will crush you by means of your own strength. What people say, that
+your warlike preparations are too great to be contained in the
+countries which you intend to attack, is quite true; but this is to our
+disadvantage. Greece will conquer you for this very reason, that she
+cannot contain you; you cannot make use of the whole of your force.
+Besides this, you will not be able to do what is essential to
+victory--that is, to meet the manoeuvres of the enemy at once, to
+support your own men if they give way, or to confirm and strengthen
+them when their ranks are wavering; long before you know it, you will
+be defeated. Moreover, you should not think that because your army is
+so large that its own chief does not know its numbers, it is therefore
+irresistible; there is nothing so great that it cannot perish; nay,
+without any other cause, its own excessive size may prove its ruin."
+What Demaratus predicted came to pass. He whose power gods and men
+obeyed, and who swept away all that opposed him, was bidden to halt by
+three hundred men, and the Persians, defeated in every part of Greece,
+learned how great a difference there is between a mob and an army. Thus
+it came to pass that Xerxes, who suffered more from the shame of his
+failure than from the losses which he sustained, thanked Demaratus for
+having been the only man who told him the truth, and permitted him to
+ask what boon he pleased. He asked to be allowed to drive a chariot into
+Sardis, the largest city in Asia, wearing a tiara erect upon his head,
+a privilege which was enjoyed by kings alone. He deserved his reward
+before he asked for it, but how wretched must the nation have been, in
+which there was no one who would speak the truth to the king except one
+man who did not speak it to himself.
+
+XXXII. The late Emperor Augustus banished his daughter, whose conduct
+went beyond the shame of ordinary immodesty, and made public the
+scandals of the imperial house.
+
+Led away by his passion, he divulged all these crimes which, as emperor,
+he ought to have kept secret with as much care as he punished them,
+because the shame of some deeds asperses even him who avenges them.
+Afterwards, when by lapse of time shame took the place of anger in his
+mind, he lamented that he had not kept silence about matters which he
+had not learned until it was disgraceful to speak of them, and often
+used to exclaim, "None of these things would have happened to me, if
+either Agrippa or Maecenas had lived!" So hard was it for the master
+of so many thousands of men to repair the loss of two. When his legions
+were slaughtered, new ones were at once enrolled; when his fleet was
+wrecked, within a few days another was afloat; when the public buildings
+were consumed by fire, finer ones arose in their stead; but the places
+of Agrippa and Maecenas remained unfilled throughout his life. What am I
+to imagine? that there were not any men like these, who could take
+their place, or that it was the fault of Augustus himself, who preferred
+mourning for them to seeking for their likes? We have no reason for
+supposing that it was the habit of Agrippa or Maecenas to speak the
+truth to him; indeed, if they had lived they would have been as great
+dissemblers as the rest. It is one of the habits of kings to insult
+their present servants by praising those whom they have lost, and to
+attribute the virtue of truthful speaking to those from whom there is no
+further risk of hearing it.
+
+XXXIII. However, to return to my subject, you see how easy it is to
+return the kindness of the prosperous, and even of those who occupy the
+highest places of all mankind. Tell them, not what they wish to hear,
+but what they will wish that they always had heard; though their ears be
+stopped by flatteries, yet sometimes truth may penetrate them; give them
+useful advice. Do you ask what service you can render to a prosperous
+man? Teach him not to rely upon his prosperity, and to understand that
+it ought to be supported by the hands of many trusty friends. Will you
+not have done much for him, if you take away his foolish belief that
+his influence will endure for ever, and teach him that what we gain by
+chance passes away soon, and at a quicker rate than it came; that we
+cannot fall by the same stages by which we rose to the height of good
+fortune, but that frequently between it and ruin there is but one step?
+You do not know how great is the value of friendship, if you do not
+understand how much you give to him to whom you give a friend, a
+commodity which is scarce not only in men's houses, but in whole
+centuries, and which is nowhere scarcer than in the places where it is
+thought to be most plentiful. Pray, do you suppose that those books of
+names, which your nomenclator [Footnote: The nomenclator was a slave
+who attended his master in canvassing and on similar occasions, for
+the purpose of telling him the names of whom he met in the street.] can
+hardly carry or remember, are those of friends? It is not your friends
+who crowd to knock at your door, and who are admitted to your greater or
+lesser levees.
+
+XXXIV. To divide one's friends into classes is an old trick of kings and
+their imitators; it shows great arrogance to think that to touch or
+to pass one's threshold can be a valuable privilege, or to grant as an
+honour that you should sit nearer one's front door than others, or enter
+house before them, although within the house there are many more doors,
+which shut out even those who have been admitted so far. With us Gaius
+Gracchus, and shortly after him Livius Drusus, were the first to keep
+themselves apart from the mass of their adherents, and to admit some to
+their privacy, some to their more select, and others to their general
+receptions. These men consequently had friends of the first and second
+rank, and so on, but in none had they true friends. Can you apply the
+name of friend to one who is admitted in his regular order to pay his
+respects to you? or can you expect perfect loyalty from one who is
+forced to slip into your presence through a grudgingly-opened door? How
+can a man arrive at using bold freedom of speech with you, if he is only
+allowed in his proper turn to make use of the common phrase, "Hail to
+you," which is used by perfect strangers? Whenever you go to any of
+these great men, whose levees interest the whole city, though you find
+all the streets beset with throngs of people, and the passers-by hardly
+able to make their way through the crowd, you may be sure that you
+have come to a place where there are many men, but no friends of their
+patron. We must not seek our friends in our entrance hall, but in our
+own breast; it is there that he ought to be received, there retained,
+and hoarded up in our minds. Teach this, and you will have repaid your
+debt of gratitude.
+
+XXXV. If you are useful to your friend only when he is in distress, and
+are superfluous when all goes well with him, you form a mean estimate
+of your own value. As you can bear yourself wisely both in doubtful,
+in prosperous, and in adverse circumstances, by showing prudence in
+doubtful cases, courage in misfortune, and self-restraint in good
+fortune, so in all circumstances you can make yourself useful to your
+friend. Do not desert him in adversity, but do not wish that it may
+befall him: the various incidents of human life will afford you many
+opportunities of proving your loyalty to him without wishing him evil.
+He who prays that another may become rich, in order that he may share
+his riches, really has a view to his own advantage, although his prayers
+are ostensibly offered in behalf of his friend; and similarly he who
+wishes that his friend may get into some trouble from which his own
+friendly assistance may extricate him--a most ungrateful wish--prefers
+himself to his friend, and thinks it worthwhile that his friend should
+be unhappy, in order that he may prove his gratitude. This very wish
+makes him ungrateful, for he wishes to rid himself of his gratitude as
+though it were a heavy burden. In returning a kindness it makes a great
+difference whether you are eager to bestow a benefit, or merely to free
+yourself from a debt. He who wishes to return a benefit will study his
+friend's interests, and will hope that a suitable occasion will arise;
+he who only wishes to free himself from an obligation will be eager to
+do so by any means whatever, which shows very bad feeling. "Do you say,"
+we may be asked, "that eagerness to repay kindness belongs to a morbid
+feeling of gratitude?" I cannot explain my meaning more clearly than
+by repeating what I have already said. You do not want to repay, but to
+escape from the benefit which you have received. You seem to say, "When
+shall I get free from this obligation? I must strive by any means in my
+power to extinguish my debt to him." You would be thought to be far from
+grateful, if you wished to pay a debt to him with his own money; yet
+this wish of yours is even more unjust; for you invoke curses upon him,
+and call down terrible imprecations upon the head of one who ought to
+be held sacred by you. No one, I suppose, would have any doubt of your
+wickedness if you were openly to pray that he might suffer poverty,
+captivity, hunger, or fear; yet what is the difference between openly
+praying for some of these things, and silently wishing for them? for
+you do wish for some of these. Go, and enjoy your belief that this is
+gratitude, to do what not even an ungrateful man would do, supposing he
+confined himself to repudiating the benefit, and did not go so far as to
+hate his benefactor.
+
+XXXVI. Who would call Aeneas pious, if he wished that his native
+city might be captured, in order that he might save his father from
+captivity? Who would point to the Sicilian youths as good examples for
+his children, if they had prayed that Aetna might flame with unusual
+heat and pour forth a vast mass of fire in order to afford them an
+opportunity of displaying their filial affection by rescuing their
+parents from the midst of the conflagration? Rome owes Scipio nothing
+if he kept the Punic War alive in order that he might have the glory of
+finishing it; she owes nothing to the Decii if they prayed for public
+disasters, to give themselves an opportunity of displaying their brave
+self-devotion. It is the greatest scandal for a physician to make work
+for himself; and many who have aggravated the diseases of their patients
+that they may have the greater credit for curing them, have either
+failed to cure them, at all or have done so at the cost of the most
+terrible suffering to their victims.
+
+XXXVII. It is said (at any rate Hecaton tells us) that when Callistratus
+with many others was driven into exile by his factious and licentiously
+free country, some one prayed that such trouble might befall the
+Athenians that they would be forced to recall the exiles, on hearing
+which, he prayed that God might forbid his return upon such terms. When
+some one tried to console our own countryman, Rutilius, for his exile,
+pointing out that civil war was at hand, and that all exiles would soon
+be restored to Rome, he answered with even greater spirit, "What harm
+have I done you, that you should wish that I may return to my country
+more unhappily than I quit it? My wish is, that my country should blush
+at my being banished, rather than that she should mourn at my having
+returned." An exile, of which every one is more ashamed than the
+sufferer, is not exile at all. These two persons, who did not wish to be
+restored to their homes at the cost of a public disaster, but preferred
+that two should suffer unjustly than that all should suffer alike, are
+thought to have acted like good citizens; and in like manner it does not
+accord with the character of a grateful man, to wish that his benefactor
+may fall into troubles which he may dispel; because, even though he may
+mean well to him, yet he wishes him evil. To put out a fire which you
+yourself have lighted, will not even gain acquittal for you, let alone
+credit.
+
+XXXVIII. In some states an evil wish was regarded as a crime. It is
+certain that at Athens Demades obtained a verdict against one who sold
+furniture for funerals, by proving that he had prayed for great gains,
+which he could not obtain without the death of many persons. Yet it is
+a stock question whether he was rightly found guilty. Perhaps he prayed,
+not that he might sell his wares to many persons, but that he might sell
+them dear, or that he might procure what he was going to sell, cheaply.
+Since his business consisted of buying and selling, why should you
+consider his prayer to apply to one branch of it only, although he made
+profit from both? Besides this, you might find every one of his trade
+guilty, for they all wish, that is, secretly pray, as he did. You might,
+moreover, find a great part of the human race guilty, for who is there
+who does not profit by his neighbour's wants? A soldier, if he wishes
+for glory, must wish for war; the farmer profits by corn being dear;
+a large number of litigants raises the price of forensic eloquence;
+physicians make money by a sickly season; dealers in luxuries are
+made rich by the effeminacy of youth; suppose that no storms and no
+conflagrations injured our dwellings, the builder's trade would be at a
+standstill. The prayer of one man was detected, but it was just like the
+prayers of all other men. Do you imagine that Arruntius and Haterius,
+and all other professional legacy-hunters do not put up the same prayers
+as undertakers and grave-diggers? though the latter know not whose death
+it is that they wish for, while the former wish for the death of their
+dearest friends, from whom, on account of their intimacy, they have most
+hopes of inheriting a fortune. No one's life does the undertaker any
+harm, whereas these men starve if their friends are long about dying;
+they do not, therefore, merely wish for their deaths in order that they
+may receive what they have earned by a disgraceful servitude, but in
+order that they may be set free from a heavy tax. There can, therefore,
+be no doubt that such persons repeat with even greater earnestness the
+prayer for which the undertaker was condemned, for whoever is likely to
+profit such men by dying, does them an injury by living. Yet the wishes
+of all these are alike well known and unpunished. Lastly, let every man
+examine his own self, let him look into the secret thoughts of his heart
+and consider what it is that he silently hopes for; how many of his
+prayers he would blush to acknowledge, even to himself; how few there
+are which we could repeat in the presence of witnesses!
+
+XXXIX. Yet we must not condemn every thing which we find worthy of
+blame, as, for instance, this wish about our friends which we have been
+discussing, arises from a misdirected feeling of affection, and falls
+into the very error which it strives to avoid, for the man is ungrateful
+at the very time when he hurries to prove his gratitude. He prays aloud,
+"May he fall into my power, may he need my influence, may not be able
+to be safe and respectable without my aid, may he be so unfortunate that
+whatever return I make to him may be regarded as a benefit." To the
+gods alone he adds, "May domestic treasons encompass him, which can be
+quelled by me alone; may some powerful and virulent enemy, some excited
+and armed mob, assail him; may he be set upon by a creditor or an
+informer."
+
+XL. See, how just you are; you would never have wished any of these
+misfortunes to befall him, if he had not bestowed a benefit upon you.
+Not to speak of the graver guilt which you incur by returning evil for
+good, you distinctly do wrong in not waiting for the fitting time for
+each action, for it is as wrong to anticipate this as it is not to take
+it when it comes. A benefit ought not always to be accepted, and ought
+not in all cases to be returned. If you were to return it to me against
+my will, you would be ungrateful, how much more ungrateful are you, if
+you force me to wish for it? Wait patiently; why are you unwilling to
+let my bounty abide with you? Why do you chafe at being laid under an
+obligation? why, as though you were dealing with a harsh usurer, are you
+in such a hurry to sign and seal an equivalent bond? Why do you wish me
+to get into trouble? Why do you call upon the gods to ruin me? If this
+is your way of returning a kindness, what would you do if you were
+exacting repayment of a debt?
+
+XLI. Above all, therefore, my Liberalis, let us learn to live calmly
+under an obligation to others, and watch for opportunities of repaying
+our debt without manufacturing them. Let us remember that this
+anxiety to seize the first opportunity of setting ourselves free shows
+ingratitude; for no one repays with good will that which he is unwilling
+to owe, and his eagerness to get it out of his hands shows that he
+regards it as a burden rather than as a favour. How much better and more
+righteous is it to bear in mind what we owe to our friends, and to offer
+repayment, not to obtrude it, nor to think ourselves too much indebted;
+because a benefit is a common bond which connects two persons. Say "I do
+not delay to repay your kindness to me; I hope that you will accept my
+gratitude cheerfully. If irresistible fate hangs over either of us, and
+destiny rules either that you must receive your benefit back again, or
+that I must receive a second benefit, why then, of us two, let him give
+that was wont to give. I am ready to receive it.
+
+  "'Tis not the part of Turnus to delay."
+
+That is the spirit which I shall show whenever the time comes; in the
+meanwhile the gods shall be my witnesses.
+
+XLII. I have noted in you, my Liberalis, and as it were touched with my
+hand a feeling of fussy anxiety not to be behindhand in doing what is
+your duty. This anxiety is not suitable to a grateful mind, which,
+on the contrary, produces the utmost confidence in oneself, and which
+drives away all trouble by the consciousness of real affection towards
+one's benefactor. To say "Take back what you gave me," is no less
+a reproach than to say "You are in my debt." Let this be the first
+privilege of a benefit, that he who bestowed it may choose the time when
+he will have it returned. "But I fear that men may speak ill of me." You
+do wrong if you are grateful only for the sake of your reputation, and
+not to satisfy your conscience. You have in this matter two judges, your
+benefactor, whom you ought not, and yourself, whom you cannot deceive.
+"But," say you, "if no occasion of repayment offers, am I always to
+remain in his debt?" Yes; but you should do so openly, and willingly,
+and should view with great pleasure what he has entrusted to you. If you
+are vexed at not having yet returned a benefit, you must be sorry that
+you ever received it; but if he deserved that you should receive a
+benefit from him, why should he not deserve that you should long remain
+in his debt?
+
+XLIII. Those persons are much mistaken who regard it as a proof of a
+great mind to make offers to give, and to fill many men's pockets and
+houses with their presents, for sometimes these are due not to a great
+mind, but to a great fortune; they do not know how far more great and
+more difficult it sometimes is to receive than to lavish gifts. I must
+disparage neither act; it is as proper to a noble heart to owe as to
+receive, for both are of equal value when done virtuously; indeed, to
+owe is the more difficult, because it requires more pains to keep a
+thing safe than to give it away. We ought not therefore to be in a hurry
+to repay, nor need we seek to do so out of due season, for to hasten to
+make repayment at the wrong time is as bad as to be slow to do so at the
+right time. My benefactor has entrusted his bounty to me: I ought not
+to have any fears either on his behalf or on my own. He has a sufficient
+security; he cannot lose it except he loses me--nay, not even if he
+loses me. I have returned thanks to him for it--that is, I have requited
+him. He who thinks too much about repaying a benefit must suppose that
+his friend thinks too much about receiving repayment. Make no difficulty
+about either course. If he wishes to receive his benefit back again,
+let us return it cheerfully; if he prefers to leave it in our hands,
+why should we dig up his treasure? why should we decline to be its
+guardians? he deserves to be allowed to do whichever he pleases. As
+for fame and reputation, let us regard them as matters which ought to
+accompany, but which ought not to direct our actions.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK VII.
+
+I.
+
+
+ Be of good cheer, my Liberalis:
+
+  "Our port is close, and I will not delay,
+   Nor by digressions wander from the way."
+
+This book collects together all that has been omitted, and in it, having
+exhausted my subject, I shall consider not what I am to say, but what
+there is which I have not yet said. If there be anything superfluous
+in it, I pray you take it in good part, since it is for you that it is
+superfluous. Had I wished to set off my work to the best advantage, I
+ought to have added to it by degrees, and to have kept for the last that
+part which would be eagerly perused even by a sated reader. However,
+instead of this, I have collected together all that was essential in the
+beginning; I am now collecting together whatever then escaped me; nor,
+by Hercules, if you ask me, do I think that, after the rules which
+govern our conduct have been stated, it is very much to the purpose to
+discuss the other questions which have been raised more for the exercise
+of our intellects than for the health of our minds. The cynic Demetrius,
+who in my opinion was a great man even if compared with the greatest
+philosophers, had an admirable saying about this, that one gained more
+by having a few wise precepts ready and in common use than by learning
+many without having them at hand. "The best wrestler," he would say, "is
+not he who has learned thoroughly all the tricks and twists of the art,
+which are seldom met with in actual wrestling, but he who has well and
+carefully trained himself in one or two of them, and watches keenly for
+an opportunity of practising them. It does not matter how many of them
+he knows, if he knows enough to give him the victory; and so in
+this subject of ours there are many points of interest, but few of
+importance. You need not know what is the system of the ocean tides,
+why each seventh year leaves its mark upon the human body, why the more
+distant parts of a long portico do not keep their true proportion,
+but seem to approach one another until at last the spaces between the
+columns disappear, how it can be that twins are conceived separately,
+though they are born together, whether both result from one, or each
+from a separate act, why those whose birth was the same should have such
+different fates in life, and dwell at the greatest possible distance
+from one another, although they were born touching one another; it will
+not do you much harm to pass over matters which we are not permitted to
+know, and which we should not profit by knowing. Truths so obscure may
+be neglected with impunity. [Footnote: The old saying, 'Truth lurks deep
+in a well (or abyss).'] Nor can we complain that nature deals hardly
+with us, for there is nothing which is hard to discover except those
+things by which we gain nothing beyond the credit of having discovered
+them; whatever things tend to make us better or happier are either
+obvious or easily discovered. Your mind can rise superior to the
+accidents of life, if it can raise itself above fears and not greedily
+covet boundless wealth, but has learned to seek for riches within
+itself; if it has cast out the fear of men and gods, and has learned
+that it has not much to fear from man, and nothing to fear from God; if
+by scorning all those things which make life miserable while they adorn
+it, the mind can soar to such a height as to see clearly that death
+cannot be the beginning of any trouble, though it is the end of many;
+if it can dedicate itself to righteousness and think any path easy which
+leads to it; if, being a gregarious creature, and born for the common
+good, it regards the world as the universal home, if it keeps its
+conscience clear towards God and lives always as though in public,
+fearing itself more than other men, then it avoids all storms, it stands
+on firm ground in fair daylight, and has brought to perfection its
+knowledge of all that is useful and essential. All that remains serves
+merely to amuse our leisure; yet, when once anchored in safety, the mind
+may consider these matters also, though it can derive no strength, but
+only culture from their discussion."
+
+II. The above are the rules which my friend Demetrius bids him who would
+make progress in philosophy to clutch with both hands, never to let
+go, but to cling to them, and make them a part of himself, and by daily
+meditation upon them to bring himself into such a state of mind, that
+these wholesome maxims occur to him of their own accord, that wherever
+he may be, they may straightway be ready for use when required, and
+that the criterion of right and wrong may present itself to him without
+delay. Let him know that nothing is evil except what is base, and
+nothing good except what is honourable: let him guide his life by this
+rule: let him both act and expect others to act in accordance with this
+law, and let him regard those whose minds are steeped in indolence, and
+who are given up to lust and gluttony, as the most pitiable of mankind,
+no matter how splendid their fortunes may be. Let him say to himself,
+"Pleasure is uncertain, short, apt to pall upon us, and the more eagerly
+we indulge in it, the sooner we bring on a reaction of feeling against
+it; we must necessarily afterwards blush for it, or be sorry for it,
+there is nothing grand about it, nothing worthy of man's nature, little
+lower as it is than that of the gods; pleasure is a low act, brought
+about by the agency of our inferior and baser members, and shameful in
+its result. True pleasure, worthy of a human being and of a man, is,
+not to stuff or swell his body with food and drink, nor to excite lusts
+which are least hurtful when they are most quiet, but to be free from
+all forms of mental disturbance, both those which arise from men's
+ambitious struggles with one another, and those which come from on high
+and are more difficult to deal with, which flow from our taking the
+traditional view of the gods, and estimating them by the analogy of our
+own vices." This equable, secure, uncloying pleasure is enjoyed by the
+man now described; a man skilled, so to say, in the laws of gods and men
+alike. Such a man enjoys the present without anxiety for the future: for
+he who depends upon what is uncertain can rely confidently upon nothing.
+Thus he is free from all those great troubles which unhinge the mind,
+he neither hopes for, nor covets anything, and engages in no uncertain
+adventures, being satisfied with what he has. Do not suppose that he
+is satisfied with a little; for everything is his, and that not in the
+sense in which all was Alexander's, who, though he reached the shore of
+the Red Sea, yet wanted more territory than that through which he
+had come. He did not even own those countries which he held or had
+conquered, while Onesicritus, whom he had sent on before him to discover
+new countries, was wandering about the ocean and engaging in war in
+unknown seas. Is it clear that he who pushed his armies beyond the
+bounds of the universe, who with reckless greed dashed headlong into a
+boundless and unexplored sea, must in reality have been full of wants?
+It matters not how many kingdoms he may have seized or given away, or
+how great a part of the world may pay him tribute; such a man must be in
+need of as much as he desires.
+
+III. This was not the vice of Alexander alone, who followed with a
+fortunate audacity in the footsteps of Bacchus and Hercules, but it is
+common to all those whose covetousness is whetted rather than appeased
+by good fortune. Look at Cyrus and Cambyses and all the royal house of
+Persia: can you find one among them who thought his empire large enough,
+or was not at the last gasp still aspiring after further conquests? We
+need not wonder at this, for whatever is obtained by covetousness is
+simply swallowed up and lost, nor does it matter how much is poured
+into its insatiable maw. Only the wise man possesses everything
+without having to struggle to retain it; he alone does not need to send
+ambassadors across the seas, measure out camps upon hostile shores,
+place garrisons in commanding forts, or manoeuvre legions and squadrons
+of cavalry. Like the immortal gods, who govern their realm without
+recourse to arms, and from their serene and lofty heights protect their
+own, so the wise man fulfils his duties, however far-reaching they may
+be, without disorder, and looks down upon the whole human race, because
+he himself is the greatest and most powerful member thereof. You may
+laugh at him, but if you in your mind survey the east and the west,
+reaching even to the regions separated from us by vast wildernesses, if
+you think of all the creatures of the earth, all the riches which the
+bounty of nature lavishes, it shows a great spirit to be able to say, as
+though you were a god, "All these are mine." Thus it is that he covets
+nothing, for there is nothing which is not contained in everything, and
+everything is his.
+
+IV. "This," say you, "is the very thing that I wanted! I have caught
+you! I shall be glad to see how you will extricate yourself from the
+toils into which you have fallen of your own accord. Tell me, if the
+wise man possesses everything, how can one give anything to a wise man?
+for even what you give him is his already. It is impossible, therefore,
+to bestow a benefit upon a wise man, if whatever is given him comes from
+his own store; yet you Stoics declare that it is possible to give to
+a wise man. I make the same inquiry about friends as well: for you
+say that friends own everything in common, and if so, no one can give
+anything to his friend, for he gives what his friend owned already in
+common with himself."
+
+There is nothing to prevent a thing belonging to a wise man, and yet
+being the property of its legal owner. According to law everything in a
+state belongs to the king, yet all that property over which the king has
+rights of possession is parcelled out among individual owners, and
+each separate thing belongs to somebody: and so one can give the king
+a house, a slave, or a sum of money without being said to give him what
+was his already; for the king has rights over all these things, while
+each citizen has the ownership of them. We speak of the country of the
+Athenians, or of the Campanians, though the inhabitants divide them
+amongst themselves into separate estates; the whole region belongs to
+one state or another, but each part of it belongs to its own individual
+proprietor; so that we are able to give our lands to the state, although
+they are reckoned as belonging to the state, because we and the state
+own them in different ways. Can there be any doubt that all the private
+savings of a slave belong to his master as well as he himself? yet he
+makes his master presents. The slave does not therefore possess nothing,
+because if his master chose he might possess nothing; nor does what he
+gives of his own free will cease to be a present, because it might have
+been wrung from him against his will. As for how we are to prove that
+the wise man possesses all things, we shall see afterwards; for the
+present we are both agreed to regard this as true; we must gather
+together something to answer the question before us, which is, how any
+means remain of acting generously towards one who already possesses all
+things? All things that a son has belong to his father, yet who does not
+know that in spite of this a son can make presents to his father? All
+things belong to the gods; yet we make presents and bestow alms even
+upon the gods. What I have is not necessarily not mine because it
+belongs to you; for the same thing may belong both to me and to you.
+
+"He to whom courtezans belong," argues our adversary, "must be
+a procurer: now courtezans are included in all things, therefore
+courtezans belong to the wise man. But he to whom courtezans belong is
+a procurer; therefore the wise man is a procurer." Yes! by the same
+reasoning, our opponents would forbid him to buy anything, arguing, "No
+man buys his own property. Now all things are the property of the wise
+man; therefore the wise man buys nothing." By the same reasoning they
+object to his borrowing, because no one pays interest for the use of
+his own money. They raise endless quibbles, although they perfectly well
+understand what we say.
+
+V. For, when I say that the wise man possesses everything, I mean that
+he does so without thereby impairing each man's individual rights in
+his own property, in the same way as in a country ruled by a good king,
+everything belongs to the king, by the right of his authority, and to
+the people by their several rights of ownership. This I shall prove
+in its proper place; in the mean time it is a sufficient answer to the
+question to declare that I am able to give to the wise man that which is
+in one way mine, and in another way his. Nor is it strange that I should
+be able to give anything to one who possesses everything. Suppose I have
+hired a house from you: some part of that house is mine, some is yours;
+the house itself is yours, the use of your house belongs to me. Crops
+may ripen upon your land, but you cannot touch them against the will of
+your tenant; and if corn be dear, or at famine price, you will
+
+  "In vain another's mighty store behold,"
+
+grown upon your land, lying upon your land, and to be deposited in
+your own barns. Though you be the landlord, you must not enter my hired
+house, nor may you take away your own slave from me if I have contracted
+for his services; nay, if I hire a carriage from you, I bestow a benefit
+by allowing you to take your seat in it, although it is your own. You
+see, therefore, that it is possible for a man to receive a present by
+accepting what is his own.
+
+VI. In all the cases which I have mentioned, each party is the owner of
+the same thing. How is this? It is because the one owns the thing, the
+other owns the use of the thing. We speak of the books of Cicero. Dorus,
+the bookseller, calls these same books his own; the one claims them
+because he wrote them, the other because he bought them; so that they
+may quite correctly be spoken of as belonging to either of the two, for
+they do belong to each, though in a different manner. Thus Titus Livius
+may receive as a present, or may buy his own books from Dorus.
+Although the wise man possesses everything, yet I can give him what I
+individually possess; for though, king-like, he in his mind possesses
+everything, yet the ownership of all things is divided among various
+individuals, so that he can both receive a present and owe one; can
+buy, or hire things. Everything belongs to Caesar; yet he has no private
+property beyond his own privy purse; as Emperor all things are his,
+but nothing is his own except what he inherits. It is possible, without
+treason, to discuss what is and what is not his; for even what the court
+may decide not to be his, from another point of view is his. In the same
+way the wise man in his mind possesses everything, in actual right and
+ownership he possesses only his own property.
+
+VII. Bion is able to prove by argument at one time that everyone is
+sacrilegious, at another that no one is. When he is in a mood for
+casting all men down the Tarpeian rock, he says, "Whosoever touches that
+which belongs to the gods, and consumes it or converts it to his own
+uses, is sacrilegious; but all things belong to the gods, so that
+whatever thing any one touches belongs to them to whom all belongs;
+whoever, therefore, touches anything is sacrilegious." Again, when he
+bids men break open temples and pillage the Capitol without fear of the
+wrath of heaven, he declares that no one can be sacrilegious; because,
+whatever a man takes away, he takes from one place which belongs to the
+gods into another place which belongs to the gods. The answer to this
+is that all places do indeed belong to the gods, but all are not
+consecrated to them, and that sacrilege can only be done in places
+solemnly dedicated to heaven. Thus, also, the whole world is a temple of
+the immortal gods, and, indeed, the only one worthy of their greatness
+and splendour, and yet there is a distinction between things sacred and
+profane; all things which it is lawful to do under the sky and the stars
+are not lawful to do within consecrated walls. The sacrilegious man
+cannot do God any harm, for He is placed beyond his reach by His divine
+nature; yet he is punished because he seems to have done Him harm: his
+punishment is demanded by our feeling on the matter, and even by his
+own. In the same way, therefore, as he who carries off any sacred
+things is regarded as sacrilegious, although that which he stole is
+nevertheless within the limits of the world, so it is possible to steal
+from a wise man: for in that case it will be some, not of that universe
+which he possesses, but some of those things of which he is the
+acknowledged owner, and which are severally his own property, which will
+be stolen from him. The former of these possessions he will recognize as
+his own, the latter he will be unwilling, even if he be able to possess;
+he will say, as that Roman commander said, when, to reward his courage
+and good service to the state, he was assigned as much land as he could
+inclose in one day's ploughing. "You do not," said he, "want a citizen
+who wants more than is enough for one citizen." Do you not think that it
+required a much greater man to refuse this reward than to earn it? for
+many have taken away the landmarks of other men's property, but no one
+sets up limits to his own.
+
+VIII. When, then, we consider that the mind of the truly wise man has
+power over all things and pervades all things, we cannot help declaring
+that everything is his, although, in the estimation of our common law,
+it may chance that he may be rated as possessing no property whatever.
+It makes a great difference whether we estimate what he owns by the
+greatness of his mind, or by the public register. He would pray to be
+delivered from that possession of everything of which you speak. I will
+not remind you of Socrates, Chrysippus, Zeno, and other great men, all
+the greater, however, because envy prevents no one from praising the
+ancients. But a short time ago I mentioned Demetrius, who seems to have
+been placed by nature in our times that he might prove that we could
+neither corrupt him nor be corrected by him; a man of consummate wisdom,
+though he himself disclaimed it, constant to the principles which he
+professed, of an eloquence worthy to deal with the mightiest subjects,
+scorning mere prettinesses and verbal niceties, but expressing with
+infinite spirit, the ideas which inspired it. I doubt not that he was
+endowed by divine providence with so pure a life and such power of
+speech in order that our age might neither be without a model nor a
+reproach. Had some god wished to give all our wealth to Demetrius on the
+fixed condition that he should not be permitted to give it away, I am
+sure that he would have refused to accept it, and would have said,
+
+IX. "I do not intend to fasten upon my back a burden like this, of which
+I never can rid myself, nor do I, nimble and lightly equipped as I am,
+mean to hinder my progress by plunging into the deep morass of business
+transactions. Why do you offer to me what is the bane of all nations?
+I would not accept it even if I meant to give it away, for I see many
+things which it would not become me to give. I should like to place
+before my eyes the things which fascinate both kings and peoples, I wish
+to behold the price of your blood and your lives. First bring before
+me the trophies of Luxury, exhibiting them as you please, either in
+succession, or, which is better, in one mass. I see the shell of
+the tortoise, a foul and slothful brute, bought for immense sums and
+ornamented with the most elaborate care, the contrast of colours which
+is admired in it being obtained by the use of dyes resembling the
+natural tints. I see tables and pieces of wood valued at the price of
+a senator's estate, which are all the more precious, the more knots
+the tree has been twisted into by disease. I see crystal vessels, whose
+price is enhanced by their fragility, for among the ignorant the risk of
+losing things increases their value instead of lowering it, as it ought.
+I see murrhine cups, for luxury would be too cheap if men did not drink
+to one another out of hollow gems the wine to be afterwards thrown up
+again. I see more than one large pearl placed in each ear; for now our
+ears are trained to carry burdens, pearls are hung from them in pairs,
+and each pair has other single ones fastened above it. This womanish
+folly is not exaggerated enough for the men of our time, unless they
+hang two or three estates upon each ear. I see ladies' silk dresses, if
+those deserve to be called dresses which can neither cover their body
+or their shame; when wearing which, they can scarcely with a good
+conscience, swear that they are not naked. These are imported at a vast
+expense from nations unknown even to trade, in order that our matrons
+may show as much of their persons in public as they do to their lovers
+in private."
+
+X. What are you doing, Avarice? see how many things there are whose
+price exceeds that of your beloved gold: all those which I have
+mentioned are more highly esteemed and valued. I now wish to review your
+wealth, those plates of gold and silver which dazzle our covetousness.
+By Hercules, the very earth, while she brings forth upon the surface
+every thing that is of use to us, has buried these, sunk them deep,
+and rests upon them with her whole weight, regarding them as pernicious
+substances, and likely to prove the ruin of mankind if brought into the
+light of day. I see that iron is brought out of the same dark pits as
+gold and silver, in order that we may lack neither the means nor the
+reward of murder. Thus far we have dealt with actual substances; but
+some forms of wealth deceive our eyes and minds alike. I see there
+letters of credit, promissory notes, and bonds, empty phantoms of
+property, ghosts of sick Avarice, with which she deceives our minds,
+which delight in unreal fancies; for what are these things, and what are
+interest, and account books, and usury, except the names of unnatural
+developments of human covetousness? I might complain of nature for not
+having hidden gold and silver deeper, for not having laid over it a
+weight too heavy to be removed: but what are your documents, your sale
+of time, your blood-sucking twelve per cent. interest? these are evils
+which we owe to our own will, which flow merely from our perverted
+habit, having nothing about them which can be seen or handled, mere
+dreams of empty avarice. Wretched is he who can take pleasure in the
+size of the audit book of his estate, in great tracts of land cultivated
+by slaves in chains, in huge flocks and herds which require provinces
+and kingdoms for their pasture ground, in a household of servants, more
+in number than some of the most warlike nations, or in a private house
+whose extent surpasses that of a large city! After he has carefully
+reviewed all his wealth, in what it is invested, and on what it is
+spent, and has rendered himself proud by the thoughts of it, let him
+compare what he has with what he wants: he becomes a poor man at once.
+"Let me go: restore me to those riches of mine. I know the kingdom of
+wisdom, which is great and stable: I possess every thing, and in such a
+manner that it belongs to all men nevertheless."
+
+XI. When, therefore, Gaius Caesar offered him two hundred thousand
+sesterces, he laughingly refused it, thinking it unworthy of himself to
+boast of having refused so small a sum. Ye gods and goddesses, what a
+mean mind must the emperor have had, if he hoped either to honour or to
+corrupt him. I must here repeat a proof of his magnanimity. I have
+heard that when he was expressing his wonder at the folly of Gaius at
+supposing that he could be influenced by such a bribe, he said, "If
+he meant to tempt me, he ought to have tried to do so by offering his
+entire kingdom."
+
+XII. It is possible, then, to give something to the wise man, although
+all things belong to the wise man. Similarly, though we declare that
+friends have all things in common, it is nevertheless possible to give
+something to a friend: for I have not everything in common with a friend
+in the same manner as with a partner, where one part belongs to him,
+and another to me, but rather as a father and a mother possess their
+children in common when they have two, not each parent possessing one
+child, but each possessing both. First of all I will prove that any
+chance would-be partner of mine has nothing in common with me: and why?
+Because this community of goods can only exist between wise men, who
+are alone capable of friendship: other men can neither be friends nor
+partners one to another. In the next place, things may be owned in
+common in various ways. The knights' seats in the theatre belong to all
+the Roman knights; yet of these the seat which I occupy becomes my own,
+and if I yield it up to any one, although I only yield him a thing
+which we own in common, still I appear to have given him something. Some
+things belong to certain persons under particular conditions. I have
+a place among the knights, not to sell, or to let, or to dwell in, but
+simply to see the spectacle from, wherefore I do not tell an untruth
+when I say that I have a place among the knights' seats. Yet if, when I
+come into the theatre, the knights' seats are full, I both have a seat
+there by right, because I have the privilege of sitting there, and I
+have not a seat there, because my seat is occupied by those who share my
+right to those places. Suppose that the same thing takes place between
+friends; whatever our friend possesses, is common to us, but is the
+property of him who owns it; I cannot make use of it against his will.
+"You are laughing at me," say you; "if what belongs to my friend is
+mine, I am able to sell it." You are not able; for you are not able to
+sell your place among the knights' seats, and yet they are in common
+between you and the other knights. Consequently, the fact that you
+cannot sell a thing, or consume it, or exchange it for the better or the
+worse does not prove that it is not yours; for that which is yours under
+certain conditions is yours nevertheless.
+
+XIII. I have received, but certainly not less. Not to detain you longer
+than is necessary, a benefit can be no more than a benefit; but the
+means employed to convey benefits may be both greater and more numerous.
+I mean those things by which kindness expresses and gives vent to
+itself, like lovers, whose many kisses and close embraces do not
+increase their love but give it play.
+
+XIV. The next question which arises has been thoroughly threshed out in
+the former books, so here it shall only be touched on shortly; for the
+arguments which have been used for other cases can be transferred to it.
+
+The question is, whether one who has done everything in his power to
+return a benefit, has returned it. "You may know," says our adversary,
+"that he has not returned it, because he did everything in his power to
+return it; it is evident, therefore, that he did not not do that which
+he did not have an opportunity of doing. A man who searches everywhere
+for his creditor without finding him does not thereby pay him what
+he owes." Some are in such a position that it is their duty to effect
+something material; in the case of others to have done all in their
+power to effect it is as good as effecting it. If a physician has done
+all in his power to heal his patient he has performed his duty; an
+advocate who employs his whole powers of eloquence on his client's
+behalf, performs his duty even though his client be convicted; the
+generalship even of a beaten commander is praised if he has prudently,
+laboriously, and courageously exercised his functions. Your friend has
+done all in his power to return your kindness, but your good fortune
+stood in his way; no adversity befell you in which he could prove the
+truth of his friendship; he could not give you money when you were
+rich, or nurse you when you were in health, or help you when you were
+succeeding; yet he repaid your kindness, even though you did not receive
+a benefit from him. Moreover, this man, being always eager, and on the
+watch for an opportunity of doing this, as he has expended much anxiety
+and much trouble upon it, has really done more than he who quickly had
+an opportunity of repaying your kindness. The case of a debtor is not
+the same, for it is not enough for him to have tried to find the money
+unless he pays it; in his case a harsh creditor stands over him who will
+not let a single day pass without charging him interest; in yours there
+is a most kind friend, who seeing you busy, troubled, and anxious would
+say.
+
+  "'Dismiss this trouble from thy breast;'
+
+leave off disturbing yourself; I have received from you all that I wish;
+you wrong me, if you suppose that I want anything further; you have
+fully repaid me in intention."
+
+"Tell me," says our adversary, "if he had repaid the benefit you would
+say that he had returned your kindness: is, then, he who repays it in
+the same position as he who does not repay it?"
+
+On the other hand, consider this: if he had forgotten the benefit which
+he had received, if he had not even attempted to be grateful, you would
+say that he had not returned the kindness; but this man has laboured day
+and night to the neglect of all his other duties in his devoted care to
+let no opportunity of proving his gratitude escape him; is then he who
+took no pains to return a kindness to be classed with this man who never
+ceased to take pains? you are unjust, if you require a material payment
+from me when you see that I am not wanting in intention.
+
+XV. In short, suppose that when you are taken captive, I have borrowed
+money, made over my property as security to my creditor, that I have
+sailed in a stormy winter season along coasts swarming with pirates,
+that I have braved all the perils which necessarily attend a voyage even
+on a peaceful sea, that I have wandered through all wildernesses seeking
+for those men whom all others flee from, and that when I have at length
+reached the pirates, someone else has already ransomed you: will you
+say that I have not returned your kindness? Even if during this voyage I
+have lost by shipwreck the money that I had raised to save you, even if
+I myself have fallen into the prison from which I sought to release you,
+will you say that I have not returned your kindness? No, by Hercules!
+the Athenians call Harmodius and Aristogiton, tyrannicides; the hand of
+Mucius which he left on the enemy's altar was equivalent to the death
+of Porsena, and valour struggling against fortune is always illustrious,
+even if it falls short of accomplishing its design. He who watches
+each opportunity as it passes, and tries to avail himself of one
+after another, does more to show his gratitude than he whom the first
+opportunity enabled to be grateful without any trouble whatever. "But,"
+says our adversary, "he gave you two things, material help and kindly
+feeling; you, therefore, owe him two." You might justly say this to one
+who returns your kindly feeling without troubling himself further; this
+man is really in your debt; but you cannot say so of one who wishes to
+repay you, who struggles and leaves no stone unturned to do so; for,
+as far as in him lies, he repays you in both kinds; in the next place,
+counting is not always a true test, sometimes one thing is equivalent to
+two; consequently so intense and ardent a wish to repay takes the place
+of a material repayment. Indeed, if a feeling of gratitude has no value
+in repaying a kindness without giving something material, then no one
+can be grateful to the gods, whom we can repay by gratitude alone. "We
+cannot," says our adversary, "give the gods anything else." Well, but
+if I am not able to give this man, whose kindness I am bound to return,
+anything beside my gratitude, why should that which is all that I can
+bestow on a god be insufficient to prove my gratitude towards a man?
+
+XVI. If, however, you ask me what I really think, and wish me to give a
+definite answer, I should say that the one party ought to consider his
+benefit to have been returned, while the other ought to feel that he has
+not returned it; the one should release his friend from the debt, the
+other should hold himself bound to pay it; the one should say, "I have
+received;" the other should answer, "I owe." In our whole investigation,
+we ought to look entirely to the public good; we ought to prevent the
+ungrateful having any excuses in which they can take refuge, and under
+cover of which they can disown their debts. "I have done all in my
+power," say you. Well, keep on doing so still. Do you suppose that our
+ancestors were so foolish, as not to understand that it is most unjust
+that the man who has wasted the money which he received from his
+creditor on debauchery, or gambling, should be classed with one who has
+lost his own property as well as that of others in a fire, by robbery,
+or some sadder mischance? They would take no excuse, that men might
+understand that they were always bound to keep their word; it was
+thought better that even a good excuse should not be accepted from a few
+persons, than that all men should be led to try to make excuses. You say
+that you have done all in your power to repay your debt; this ought to
+be enough for your friend, but not enough for you. He to whom you owe a
+kindness, is unworthy of gratitude if he lets all your anxious care and
+trouble to repay it go for nothing; and so, too, if your friend takes
+your good will as a repayment, you are ungrateful if you are not all the
+more eager to feel the obligation of the debt which he has forgiven you.
+Do not snap up his receipt, or call witnesses to prove it; rather seek
+opportunities for repaying not less than before; repay the one man
+because he asks for repayment, the other because he forgives you your
+debt; the one because he is good, the other because he is bad. You, need
+not, therefore, think that you have anything to do with the question
+whether a man be bound to repay the benefit which he has received from
+a wise man, if that man has ceased to be wise and has turned into a bad
+man. You would return a deposit which you had received from a wise man;
+you would return a loan even to a bad man; what grounds have you for
+not returning a benefit also? Because he has changed, ought he to change
+you? What? if you had received anything from a man when healthy, would
+you not return it to him when he was sick, though we always are more
+bound to treat our friends with more kindness when they are ailing? So,
+too, this man is sick in his mind; we ought to help him, and bear with
+him; folly is a disease of the mind.
+
+XVII. I think here we ought to make a distinction, in order to render
+this point more intelligible. Benefits are of two kinds: one, the
+perfect and true benefit, which can only be bestowed by one wise man
+upon another; the other, the common vulgar form which ignorant men like
+ourselves interchange. With regard to the latter, there is no doubt that
+it is my duty to repay it whether my friend turns out to be a murderer,
+a thief, or an adulterer. Crimes have laws to punish them; criminals are
+better reformed by judges than by ingratitude; a man ought not to make
+you bad by being so himself. I will fling a benefit back to a bad man, I
+will return it to a good man; I do so to the latter, because I owe it to
+him; to the former, that I may not be in his debt.
+
+XVIII. With regard to the other class of benefit, the question arises
+whether if I was not able to take it without being a wise man, I am able
+to return it, except to a wise man. For suppose I do return it to him,
+he cannot receive it, he is not any longer able to receive such a thing,
+he has lost the knowledge of how to use it. You would not bid me throw
+back [Footnote: i.e. in the game of ball.] a ball to a man who has lost
+his hand; it is folly to give any one what he cannot receive. If I am
+to begin to reply to the last argument, I say that I should not give him
+what he is unable to take; but I would return it, even though he is not
+able to receive it. I cannot lay him under an obligation unless he takes
+my bounty; but by returning it I can free myself from my obligations to
+him. You say, "he will not be able to use it." Let him see to that; the
+fault will lie with him, not with me.
+
+XIX. "To return a thing," says our adversary, "is to hand it over to one
+who can receive it. Why, if you owed some wine to any man, and he bade
+you pour it into a net or a sieve, would you say that you had returned
+it? or would you be willing to return it in such a way that in the act
+of returning it was lost between you?" To return is to give that which
+you owe back to its owner when he wishes for it. It is not my duty to
+perform more than this; that he should possess what he has received
+from me is a matter for further consideration; I do not owe him the
+safe-keeping of his property, but the honourable payment of my debt,
+and it is much better that he should not have it, than that I should
+not return it to him. I would repay my creditor, even though he would
+at once take what I paid him to the market; even if he deputed an
+adulteress to receive the money from me, I would pay it to her; even
+if he were to pour the coins which he receives into a loose fold of his
+cloak, I would pay it. It is my business to return it to him, not to
+keep it and save it for him after I have returned it; I am bound to take
+care of his bounty when I have received it, but not when I have returned
+it to him. While it remains with me, it must be kept safe; but when he
+asks for it again I must give it to him, even though it slips out of his
+hands as he takes it. I will repay a good man when it is convenient; I
+will repay a bad man when he asks me to do so.
+
+"You cannot," argues our adversary, "return him a benefit of the same
+kind as that which you received; for you received it from a wise man,
+and you are returning it to a fool." Do I not return to him such a
+benefit, as he is now able to receive? It is not my fault if I return it
+to him worse than I received it, the fault lies with him, and so, unless
+he regains his former wisdom, I shall return it in such a form as he
+in his fallen condition is able to receive. "But what," asks he, "if
+he become not only bad, but savage and ferocious, like Apollodorus or
+Phalaris, would you return even to such a man as this a benefit which
+you had received from him?" I answer, Nature does not admit of so great
+a change in a wise man. Men do not change from the best to the worst;
+even in becoming bad, he would necessarily retain some traces of
+goodness; virtue is never so utterly quenched as not to imprint on the
+mind marks which no degradation can efface. If wild animals bred in
+captivity escape into the woods, they still retain something of their
+original tameness, and are as remote from the gentlest in the one
+extreme as they are in the other from those which have always been wild,
+and have never endured to be touched by man's hand. No one who has ever
+applied himself to philosophy ever becomes completely wicked; his mind
+becomes so deeply coloured with it, that its tints can never be entirely
+spoiled and blackened. In the next place, I ask whether this man of
+yours be ferocious merely in intent, or whether he breaks out into
+actual outrages upon mankind? You have instanced the tyrants Apollodorus
+and Phalaris; if the bad man restrains their evil likeness within
+himself, why should I not return his benefit to him, in order to set
+myself free from any further dealings with him? If, however, he not
+only delights in human blood, but feeds upon it; if he exercises his
+insatiable cruelty in the torture of persons of all ages, and his fury
+is not prompted by anger, but by a sort of delight in cruelty, if he
+cuts the throats of children before the eyes of their parents; if, not
+satisfied with merely killing his victims, he tortures them, and not
+only burns but actually roasts them; if his castle is always wet with
+freshly shed blood; then it is not enough not to return his benefits.
+All connexion between me and such a man has been broken off by his
+destruction of the bonds of human society. If he had bestowed something
+upon me, but were to invade my native country, he would have lost all
+claim to my gratitude, and it would be counted a crime to make him any
+return; if he does not attack my country, but is the scourge of his own;
+if he has nothing to do with my nation, but torments and cuts to pieces
+his own, then in the same manner such depravity, though it does not
+render him my personal enemy, yet renders him hateful to me, and the
+duty which I owe to the human race is anterior to and more important
+than that which I owe to him as an individual.
+
+XX. However, although this be so, and although I am freed from all
+obligation towards him, from the moment when, by outraging all laws, he
+rendered it impossible for any man to do him a wrong, nevertheless, I
+think I ought to make the following distinction in dealing with him.
+If my repayment of his benefit will neither increase nor maintain his
+powers of doing mischief to mankind, and is of such a character that I
+can return it to him without disadvantage to the public, I would return
+it: for instance, I would save the life of his infant child; for what
+harm can this benefit do to any of those who suffer from his cruelty?
+But I would not furnish him with money to pay his bodyguard. If he
+wishes for marbles, or fine clothes, the trappings of his luxury will
+harm no one; but with soldiers and arms I would not furnish him. If he
+demands, as a great boon, actors and courtesans and such things as will
+soften his savage nature, I would willingly bestow them upon him. I
+would not furnish him with triremes and brass-beaked ships of war, but I
+would send him fast sailing and luxuriously-fitted vessels, and all
+the toys of kings who take their pleasure on the sea. If his health was
+altogether despaired of, I would by the same act bestow a benefit on all
+men and return one to him; seeing that for such characters death is
+the only remedy, and that he who never will return to himself, had best
+leave himself. However, such wickedness as this is uncommon, and is
+always regarded as a portent, as when the earth opens, or when fires
+break forth from caves under the sea; so let us leave it, and speak of
+those vices which we can hate without shuddering at them. As for the
+ordinary bad man, whom I can find in the marketplace of any town, who is
+feared only by individuals, I would return to him a benefit which I
+had received from him. It is not right that I should profit by his
+wickedness; let me return what is not mine to its owner. Whether he be
+good or bad makes no difference; but I would consider the matter most
+carefully, if I were not returning but bestowing it.
+
+XXI. This point requires to be illustrated by a story. A certain
+Pythagoraean bought a fine pair of shoes from a shoemaker; and as they
+were an expensive piece of work, he did not pay ready money for them.
+Some time afterwards he came to the shop to pay for them, and after he
+had long been knocking at the closed door, some one said to him, "Why do
+you waste your time? The shoemaker whom you seek has been carried out
+of his house and buried; this is a grief to us who lose our friends for
+ever, but by no means so to you, who know that he will be born again,"
+jeering at the Pythagoraean. Upon this our philosopher not unwillingly
+carried his three or four denarii home again, shaking them every now and
+then; afterwards, blaming himself for the pleasure which he had secretly
+felt at not paying his debt, and perceiving that he enjoyed having made
+this trifling gain, he returned to the shop, and saying, "the man lives
+for you, pay him what you owe," he passed four denarii into the
+shop through the crack of the closed door, and let them fall inside,
+punishing himself for his unconscionable greediness that he might not
+form the habit of appropriating that which is not his own.
+
+XXII. If you owe anything, seek for some one to whom you may repay it,
+and if no one demands it, dun your own self; whether the man be good
+or bad is no concern of yours; repay him, and then blame him. You have
+forgotten, how your several duties are divided: it is right for him to
+forget it, but we have bidden you bear it in mind. When, however, we
+say that he who bestows a benefit ought to forget it, it is a mistake to
+suppose that we rob him of all recollection of the business, though it
+is most creditable to him; some of our precepts are stated over strictly
+in order to reduce them to their true proportions. When we say that he
+ought not to remember it, we mean he ought not to speak publicly, or
+boast of it offensively. There are some, who, when they have bestowed
+a benefit, tell it in all societies, talk of it when sober, cannot be
+silent about it when drunk, force it upon strangers, and communicate it
+to friends; it is to quell this excessive and reproachful consciousness
+that we bid him who gave it forget it, and by commanding him to do this,
+which is more than he is able, encourage him to keep silence.
+
+XXIII. When you distrust those whom you order to do anything, you ought
+to command them to do more than enough in order that they may do what
+is enough. The purpose of all exaggeration is to arrive at the truth by
+falsehood. Consequently, he who spoke of horses as being:
+
+  "Whiter than snows and swifter than the winds,"
+
+said what could not possibly be in order that they might be thought to
+be as much so as possible. And he who said:
+
+  "More firm than crags, more headlong than the stream,"
+
+did not suppose that he should make any one believe that a man could
+ever be as firm as a crag. Exaggeration never hopes all its daring
+flights to be believed, but affirms what is incredible, that thereby it
+may convey what is credible. When we say, "let the man who has bestowed
+a benefit, forget it," what we mean is, "let him be as though he had
+forgotten it; let not his remembrance of it appear or be seen." When
+we say that repayment of a benefit ought not to be demanded, we do not
+utterly forbid its being demanded; for repayment must often be extorted
+from bad men, and even good men require to be reminded of it. Am I not
+to point out a means of repayment to one who does not perceive it? Am I
+not to explain my wants to one does not know them? Why should he (if
+a bad man) have the excuse, or (if a good man) have the sorrow of not
+knowing them? Men ought sometimes to be reminded of their debts, though
+with modesty, not in the tone of one demanding a legal right.
+
+XXIV. Socrates once said in the hearing of his friends: "I would have
+bought a cloak, if I had had the money for it." He asked no one for
+money, but he reminded them all to give it. There was a rivalry between
+them, as to who should give it; and how should there not be? Was it not
+a small thing which Socrates received? Yes, but it was a great thing
+to be the man from whom Socrates received it. Could he blame them more
+gently? "I would," said he, "have bought a cloak if I had had the money
+for it." After this, however eager any one was to give, he gave too
+late; for he had already been wanting in his duty to Socrates. Because
+some men harshly demand repayment of debts, we forbid it, not in order
+that it may never be done, but that it may be done sparingly.
+
+XXV. Aristippus once, when enjoying a perfume, said: "Bad luck to those
+effeminate persons who have brought so nice a thing into disrepute." We
+also may say, "Bad luck to those base extortioners who pester us for a
+fourfold return of their benefits, and have brought into disrepute
+so nice a thing as reminding our friends of their duty." I shall
+nevertheless make use of this right of friendship, and I shall demand
+the return of a benefit from any man from whom I would not have scrupled
+to ask for one, such a man as would regard the power of returning a
+benefit as equivalent to receiving a second one. Never, not even when
+complaining of him, would I say,
+
+  "A wretch forlorn upon the shore he lay,
+   His ship, his comrades, all were swept away;
+   Fool that I was, I pitied his despair,
+   And even gave him of my realm a share."
+
+This is not to remind, but to reproach; this is to make one's benefits
+odious to enable him, or even to make him wish to be ungrateful. It is
+enough, and more than enough, to remind him of it gently and familiarly:
+
+  "If aught of mine hath e'er deserved thy thanks."
+
+To this his answer would be, "Of course you have deserved my thanks; you
+took me up, 'a wretch forlorn upon the shore.'"
+
+XXVI. "But," says our adversary, "suppose that we gain nothing by this;
+suppose that he pretends that he has forgotten it, what ought I to do?"
+You now ask a very necessary question, and one which fitly concludes
+this branch of the subject, how, namely, one ought to bear with the
+ungrateful. I answer, calmly, gently, magnanimously. Never let any one's
+discourtesy, forgetfulness, or ingratitude, enrage you so much that you
+do not feel any pleasure at having bestowed a benefit upon him; never
+let your wrongs drive you into saying, "I wish I had not done it." You
+ought to take pleasure even in the ill-success of your benefit; he will
+always be sorry for it, even though you are not even now sorry for it.
+You ought not to be indignant, as if something strange had happened; you
+ought rather to be surprised if it had not happened. Some are prevented
+by difficulties, some by expense, and some by danger from returning your
+bounty; some are hindered by a false shame, because by returning it,
+they would confess that they had received it; with others ignorance of
+their duty, indolence, or excess of business, stands in the way. Reflect
+upon the insatiability of men's desires. You need not be surprised if no
+one repays you in a world in which no one ever gains enough. What man is
+there of so firm and trustworthy a mind that you can safely invest your
+benefits in him? One man is crazed with lust, another is the slave of
+his belly, another gives his whole soul to gain, caring nothing for the
+means by which he amasses it; some men's minds are disturbed by envy,
+some blinded by ambition till they are ready to fling themselves on the
+sword's point. In addition to this, one must reckon sluggishness of
+mind and old age; and also the opposites of these, restlessness and
+disturbance of mind, also excessive self-esteem and pride in the
+very things for which a man ought to be despised. I need not mention
+obstinate persistence in wrong-doing, or frivolity which cannot remain
+constant to one point; besides all this, there is headlong rashness,
+there is timidity which never gives us trustworthy counsel, and the
+numberless errors with which we struggle, the rashness of the most
+cowardly, the quarrels of our best friends, and that most common evil
+of trusting in what is most uncertain, and of undervaluing, when we have
+obtained it, that which we once never hoped to possess. Amidst all these
+restless passions, how can you hope to find a thing so full of rest as
+good faith?
+
+XXVII. If a true picture of our life were to rise before your mental
+vision, you would, I think, behold a scene like that of a town just
+taken by storm, where decency and righteousness were no longer regarded,
+and no advice is heard but that of force, as if universal confusion
+were the word of command. Neither fire nor sword are spared; crime
+is unpunished by the laws; even religion, which saves the lives of
+suppliants in the very midst of armed enemies, does not check those who
+are rushing to secure plunder. Some men rob private houses, some public
+buildings; all places, sacred or profane, are alike stripped; some burst
+their way in, others climb over; some open a wider path for themselves
+by overthrowing the walls that keep them out, and make their way to
+their booty over ruins; some ravage without murdering, others brandish
+spoils dripping with their owner's blood; everyone carries off his
+neighbours' goods. In this greedy struggle of the human race surely you
+forget the common lot of all mankind, if you seek among these robbers
+for one who will return what he has got. If you are indignant at
+men being ungrateful, you ought also to be indignant at their being
+luxurious, avaricious and lustful; you might as well be indignant with
+sick men for being ugly, or with old men for being pale. It is, indeed,
+a serious vice, it is not to be borne, and sets men at variance with one
+another; nay, it rends and destroys that union by which alone our human
+weakness can be supported; yet it is so absolutely universal, that even
+those who complain of it most are not themselves free from it.
+
+XXVIII. Consider within yourself, whether you have always shown
+gratitude to those to whom you owe it, whether no one's kindness has
+ever been wasted upon you, whether you constantly bear in mind all the
+benefits which you have received. You will find that those which you
+received as a boy were forgotten before you became a man; that those
+bestowed upon you as a young man slipped from your memory when you
+became an old one. Some we have lost, some we have thrown away, some
+have by degrees passed out of our sight, to some we have wilfully shut
+our eyes. If I am to make excuses for your weakness, I must say in the
+first place that human memory is a frail vessel, and is not large enough
+to contain the mass of things placed in it; the more it receives, the
+more it must necessarily lose; the oldest things in it give way to the
+newest. Thus it comes to pass that your nurse has hardly any influence
+with you, because the lapse of time has set the kindness which you
+received from her at so great a distance; thus it is that you no longer
+look upon your teacher with respect; and that now when you are busy
+about your candidature for the consulate or the priesthood, you forget
+those who supported you in your election to the quaestorship. If you
+carefully examine yourself, perhaps you will find the vice of which
+you complain in your own bosom; you are wrong in being angry with a
+universal failing, and foolish also, for it is your own as well; you
+must pardon others, that you may yourself be acquitted. You will make
+your friend a better man by bearing with him, you will in all cases make
+him a worse one by reproaching him. You can have no reason for rendering
+him shameless; let him preserve any remnants of modesty which he may
+have. Too loud reproaches have often dispelled a modesty which might
+have borne good fruit. No man fears to be that which all men see that he
+is; when his fault is made public, he loses his sense of shame.
+
+XXIX. You say, "I have lost the benefit which I bestowed." Yet do we
+say that we have lost what we consecrate to heaven, and a benefit well
+bestowed, even though we get an ill return for it, is to be reckoned
+among things consecrated. Our friend is not such a man as we hoped he
+was; still, let us, unlike him, remain the same as we were. The loss did
+not take place when he proved himself so; his ingratitude cannot be made
+public without reflecting some shame upon us, since to complain of the
+loss of a benefit is a sign that it was not well bestowed. As far as we
+are able we ought to plead with ourselves on his behalf: "Perhaps he was
+not able to return it, perhaps he did not know of it, perhaps he will
+still do so." A wise and forbearing creditor prevents the loss of some
+debts by encouraging his debtor and giving him time. We ought to do the
+same, we ought to deal tenderly with a weakly sense of honour.
+
+XXX. "I have lost," say you, "the benefit which I bestowed." You are a
+fool, and do not understand when your loss took place; you have indeed
+lost it, but you did so when you gave it, the fact has only now come
+to light. Even in the case of those benefits which appear to be lost,
+gentleness will do much good; the wounds of the mind ought to be
+handled as tenderly as those of the body. The string, which might be
+disentangled by patience, is often broken by a rough pull. What is
+the use of abuse, or of complaints? why do you overwhelm him with
+reproaches? why do you set him free from his obligation? even if he
+be ungrateful he owes you nothing after this. What sense is there in
+exasperating a man on whom you have conferred great favours, so as out
+of a doubtful friend to make a certain enemy, and one, too, who will
+seek to support his own cause by defaming you, or to make men say, "I do
+not know what the reason is that he cannot endure a man to whom he
+owes so much; there must be something in the background?" Any man can
+asperse, even if he does not permanently stain the reputation of his
+betters by complaining of them; nor will any one be satisfied with
+imputing small crimes to them, when it is only by the enormity of his
+falsehood that he can hope to be believed.
+
+XXXI. What a much better way is that by which the semblance of
+friendship, and, indeed, if the other regains to his right mind,
+friendship itself is preserved! Bad men are overcome by unwearying
+goodness, nor does any one receive kindness in so harsh and hostile a
+spirit as not to love good men even while he does them wrong, when they
+lay him under the additional obligation of requiring no return for their
+kindness. Reflect, then, upon this: you say, "My kindness has met with
+no return, what am I to do? I ought to imitate the gods, those noblest
+disposers of all events, who begin to bestow their benefits on those who
+know them not, and persist in bestowing them on those who are ungrateful
+for them. Some reproach them with neglect of us, some with injustice
+towards us; others place them outside of their own world, in sloth and
+indifference, without light, and without any functions; others declare
+that the sun itself, to whom we owe the division of our times of labour
+and of rest, by whose means we are saved from being plunged in the
+darkness of eternal night; who, by his circuit, orders the seasons
+of the year, gives strength to our bodies, brings forth our crops and
+ripens our fruits, is merely a mass of stone, or a fortuitous collection
+of fiery particles, or anything rather than a god. Yet, nevertheless,
+like the kindest of parents, who only smile at the spiteful words of
+their children, the gods do not cease to heap benefits upon those
+who doubt from what source their benefits are derived, but continue
+impartially distributing their bounty among all the peoples and nations
+of the earth. Possessing only the power of doing good, they moisten
+the land with seasonable showers, they put the seas in movement by the
+winds, they mark time by the course of the constellations, they temper
+the extremes of heat and cold, of summer and winter, by breathing a
+milder air upon us; and they graciously and serenely bear with the
+faults of our erring spirits. Let us follow their example; let us give,
+even if much be given to no purpose, let us, in spite of this, give to
+others; nay, even to those upon whom our bounty has been wasted. No one
+is prevented by the fall of a house from building another; when one home
+has been destroyed by fire, we lay the foundations of another before the
+site has had time to cool; we rebuild ruined cities more than once
+upon the same spots, so untiring are our hopes of success. Men would
+undertake no works either on land or sea if they were not willing to try
+again what they have failed in once."
+
+XXXII. Suppose a man is ungrateful, he does not injure me, but himself;
+I had the enjoyment of my benefit when I bestowed it upon him. Because
+he is ungrateful, I shall not be slower to give but more careful; what I
+have lost with him, I shall receive back from others. But I will bestow
+a second benefit upon this man himself, and will overcome him even as a
+good husbandman overcomes the sterility of the soil by care and culture;
+if I do not do so my benefit is lost to me, and he is lost to mankind.
+It is no proof of a great mind to give and to throw away one's bounty;
+the true test of a great mind is to throw away one's bounty and still to
+give.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits, by Seneca
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