n 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.