imself a benefit?'

VIII. It is natural that a man should first incur an obligation, and
then that he should return gratitude for it; a debtor cannot exist
without a creditor, any more than a husband without a wife, or a son
without a father; someone must give in order that some one may
receive. Just as no one carries himself, although he moves his body and
transports it from place to place; as no one, though he may have made a
speech in his own defence, is said to have stood by himself, or erects
a statue to himself as his own patron; as no sick man, when by his
own care he has regained his health, asks himself for a fee; so in no
transaction, even when a man does what is useful to himself, need he
return thanks to himself, because there is no one to whom he can return
them. Though I grant that a man can bestow a benefit upon himself, yet
at the same time that he gives it, he also receives it; though I grant
that a man may receive a benefit from himself, yet he receives it at the
same time that he gives it. The exchange takes place within doors, as
they say, and the transfer is made at once, as though the debt were a
fictitious one; for he who gives is not a different person to he who
receives, but one and the same. The word "to owe" has no meaning except
as between two persons; how then can it apply to one man who incurs an
obligation, and by the same act frees himself from it? In a disk or
a ball there is no top or bottom, no beginning or end, because the
relation of the parts is changed when it moves, what was behind coming
before, and what went down on one side coming up on the other, so that
all the parts, in whatever direction they may move, come back to the
same position. Imagine that the same thing takes place in a man; into
however many pieces you may divide him, he remains one. If he strikes
himself, he has no one to call to account for the insult; if he binds
himself and locks himself up, he cannot demand damages; if he bestows a
benefit upon himself, he straightway returns it to the giver. It is said
that there is no waste in nature, because everything which is taken from
nature returns to her again, and nothing can perish, because it cannot
fall out of nature, but goes round again to the point from whence
it started. You ask, "What connection has this illustration with the
subject?" I will tell you. Imagine yourself to be ungrateful, the
benefit bestowed upon you is not lost, he who gave it has it; suppose