ght 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 h