h 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 give