m, but because I am willing to constitute
myself your debtor of my own free will. On the other hand I have derived
from his safety the greatest possible pleasure and advantage, and I have
escaped that most dreadful blow, the loss of my child. True, but we are
not now discussing whether you have done me any good or not, but whether
you have bestowed a benefit upon me; for animals, stones, and herbs can
do one good, but do not bestow benefits, which can only be given by one
who wishes well to the receiver. Now you do not wish well to the father,
but only to the son; and sometimes you do not even know the father. So
when you have said, "Have I not bestowed a benefit upon the father by
saving the son?" you ought to meet this with, "Have I, then, bestowed a
benefit upon a father whom I do not know, whom I never thought of?" And
what will you say when, as is sometimes the case, you hate the father,
and yet save his son? Can you be thought to have bestowed a benefit upon
one whom you hated most bitterly while you were bestowing it?

However, if I were to lay aside the bickering of dialogue, and answer
you as a lawyer, I should say that you ought to consider the intention
of the giver, you must regard his benefit as bestowed upon the person
upon whom he meant to bestow it. If he did it in honour of the father,
then the father received the benefit; if he thought only of the son,
then the father is not laid under any obligation: by the benefit which
was conferred upon the son, even though the father derives pleasure from
it. Should he, however, have an opportunity, he will himself wish to
give you something, yet not as though he were forced to repay a debt,
but rather as if he had grounds for beginning an exchange of favours.
No return for a benefit ought to be demanded from the father of the
receiver; if he does you any kindness in return for it, he should be
regarded as, a righteous man, but not as a grateful one. For there is no
end to it; if I bestow a benefit on the receiver's father, do I likewise
bestow it upon his mother, his grandfather, his maternal uncle, his
children, relations, friends, slaves, and country? Where, then, does
a benefit begin to stop? for there follows it this endless chain of
people, to whom it is hard to assign bounds, because they join it by
degrees, and are always creeping on towards it.

XX. A common question is, "Two brothers are at variance. If I save the
life of one, do I confer a benefit upon