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.