nd 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, a