efit? I see
that the former course is adopted by the law of the land; you know
best what the law may be among you Stoic philosophers in such a case. I
suppose that you keep the action which I bring against another distinct
from that which he Strings against me, and the two processes are not
merged into one? For instance, if a man entrusts me with money, and
afterwards robs me, I shall bring an action against him for theft, and
he will bring one against me for unlawfully detaining his property?"

VI. The cases which you have mentioned, my Liberalis, come under
well-established laws, which it is necessary for us to follow. One law
cannot be merged in another: each one proceeds its own way. There is a
particular action which deals with deposits just as there is one which
deals with theft. A benefit is subject to no law; it depends upon my
own arbitration. I am at liberty to contrast the amount of good or
harm which any one may have done me, and then to decide which of us is
indebted to the other. In legal processes we ourselves have no power, we
must go whither they lead us; in the case of a benefit the supreme
power is mine, I pronounce sentence. Consequently I do not separate or
distinguish between benefits and wrongs, but send them before the same
judge. Unless I did so, you would bid me love and hate, give thanks and
make complaints at the same time, which human nature does not admit of.
I would rather compare the benefit and the injury with one another, and
see whether there were any balance in my favour. If anybody puts lines
of other writing upon my manuscript he conceals, though he does not take
away, the letters which were there before, and in like manner a wrong
coming after a benefit does not allow it to be seen.

VII. Your face, by which I have agreed to be guided, now becomes
wrinkled with frowns, as though I were straying too widely from the
subject. You seem to say to me:

"Why steer to seaward?
Hither bend thy course,
Hug close the shore..."

I do hug it as close as possible. So now, if you think that we have
dwelt sufficiently upon this point, let us proceed to the consideration
of the next--that is, whether we are at all indebted to any one who
does us good without wishing to do so. I might have expressed this
more clearly, if it were not right that the question should be somewhat
obscurely stated, in order that by the distinction immediately following
it may be shown that we mean to investigate