the reach of our weapons.

Not to return gratitude for benefits is base in itself, and is held base
in all men's opinion. Therefore, even the ungrateful men complain of the
ungrateful, and yet all the time this failing, which none commend, is
firmly planted in all; so perverse is human nature that we find some
become our deadliest enemies, not merely after benefits received, but
for those very favours. I cannot deny but that this befalls some from a
kink in their disposition; yet more act so because the interposition of
time has extinguished the remembrance. Ungrateful is the man who denies
that he has received a good turn which has been done him; ungrateful is
he who pretends he has not received it; ungrateful is he who makes no
return; but the most ungrateful of all is he who has forgotten.

There is a question raised whether so hateful a vice ought to go
unpunished. Now, with the exception of Macedonia, there is no country
where an action at law is possible for ingratitude. And this is a strong
argument that no such action should be granted. This most frequent crime
is nowhere punished, although everywhere condemned. Many reasons occur
to me whereby it must needs follow that this fault ought not to come
under the purview of law. First of all, the best part of a benefit is
lost if a lawsuit is allowable, as in the case of a definite loan.
Again, whereas it is a most honourable thing to show gratitude, it
ceases to be honourable if it be forced. By such coercion we should
spoil two of the finest things in human life--a grateful man and a
bountiful giver. "What, then? Shall the ungrateful man be left
unchastised?" My answer is: "What, then? Shall the undutiful man be left
unchastised--the malignant man, or the avaricious, or the man with no
self-control, or the cruel? Dost thou think that goes unpunished which
is loathed? Dost thou not call him unhappy who has lost his eyesight, or
whose hearing has been impaired by disease? And dost thou not call him
miserable who has lost the sense of feeling benefits?"

_V.--Divine Benefits to Man_

Who is there so wretched, so totally forlorn, who has been born under so
hard a fate and to such travail as never to have felt the vastness of
the Divine generosity? Look even at those who complain of and live
malcontent with their lot, and you will find they are not altogether
without a portion in the celestial generosity; and there is none on whom
some drops have not fallen from t