proceed from
good will, and which is not meant as such by the giver. If any one
does me a service, without knowing it, I am under no obligation to him;
should he do so, meaning to injure me, I shall imitate his conduct.

X. Let us turn our attention to the first of these. Can you desire me to
do anything to express my gratitude to a man who did nothing in order to
confer a benefit upon me? Passing on to the next, do you wish me to show
my gratitude to such a man, and of my own will to return to him what I
received from him against his will? What am I to say of the third, he
who, meaning to do an injury, blunders into bestowing a benefit? That
you should have wished to confer a benefit upon me is not sufficient
to render me grateful; but that you should have wished not to do so is
enough to set me free from any obligation to you. A mere wish does not
constitute a benefit; and just as the best and heartiest wish is not a
benefit when fortune prevents its being carried into effect, neither is
what fortune bestows upon us a benefit, unless good wishes preceded
it. In order to lay me under an obligation, you must not merely do me a
service, but you must do so intentionally.

XI. Cleanthes makes use of the following example:--"I sent," says he,
"two slaves to look for Plato and bring him to me from the Academy. One
of them searched through the whole of the colonnade, and every other
place in which he thought that he was likely to be found, and returned
home alike weary and unsuccessful; the other sat down among the audience
of a mountebank close by, and, while amusing himself in the society of
other slaves like a careless vagabond as he was, found Plato, without
seeking for him, as he happened to pass that way. We ought," says he,
"to praise that slave who, as far as lay in his power, did what he was
ordered, and we ought to punish the other whose laziness turned out so
fortunate." It is goodwill alone which does one real service; let us
then consider under what conditions it lays us under obligations. It is
not enough to wish a man well, without doing him good; nor is it enough
to do him good without wishing him well. Suppose that some one wished to
give me a present, but did not give it; I have his good will, but I
do not have his benefit, which consists of subject matter and goodwill
together. I owe nothing to one who wished to lend me money but did not
do so, and in like manner I shall be the friend of one who wished but