ings of which we spoke are not benefits,
but they possess the appearance of benefits. "Then, just as they are
quasi-benefits, so your man is quasi-ungrateful, not really ungrateful."
This is untrue, because both he who gives and he who receives them
speaks of them as benefits; so he who fails to return the semblance of
a real benefit is as much an ungrateful man as he who mixes a sleeping
draught, believing it to be poison, is a poisoner.

XIV. Cleanthes speaks more impetuously than this. "Granted," says he,
"that what he received was not a benefit, yet he is ungrateful, because
he would not have returned a benefit if he had received one." So he who
carries deadly weapons and has intentions of robbing and murdering, is
a brigand even before he has dipped his hands in blood; his wickedness
consists and is shown in action, but does not begin thereby. Men are
punished for sacrilege, although no one's hands can reach to the gods.
"How," asks our opponent, "can any one be ungrateful to a bad man, since
a bad man cannot bestow a benefit?" In the same way, I answer, because
that which he received was not a benefit, but was called one; if any
one receives from a bad man any of those things which are valued by the
ignorant, and of which bad men often possess great store, it becomes his
duty to make a return in the same kind, and to give back as though they
were truly good those things which he received as though they were
truly good. A man is said to be in debt, whether he owes gold pieces
or leather marked with a state stamp, such as the Lacedaemonians used,
which passes for coined money. Pay your debts in that kind in which you
incurred them. You have nothing to do with the definition of benefits,
or with the question whether so great and noble a name ought to be
degraded by applying it to such vulgar and mean matters as these, nor do
we seek for truth that we may use it to the disadvantage of others;
do you adjust your minds to the semblance of truth, and while you are
learning what is really honourable, respect everything to which the name
of honour is applied.

XV. "In the same way," argues our adversary, "that your school proves
that no one is ungrateful, you afterwards prove that all men are
ungrateful. For, as you say, all fools are bad men; he who has one vice
has all vices; all men are both fools and bad men; therefore all men are
ungrateful." Well, what then? Are they not? Is not this the universal
reproach of the hu