do a wrong that they may bestow a benefit, whereas it would have
been much better for them to do nothing, than by a crime to gain an
opportunity of doing good service. What should we say of a pilot who
prayed to the gods for dreadful storms and tempests, in order that
danger might make his skill more highly esteemed? what of a general who
should pray that a vast number of the enemy surround his camp, fill
the ditches by a sudden charge, tear down the rampart round his
panic-stricken army, and plant its hostile standards at the very gates,
in order that he might gain more glory by restoring his broken ranks and
shattered fortunes? All such men confer their benefits upon us by odious
means, for they beg the gods to harm those whom they mean to help, and
wish them to be struck down before they raise them up; it is a cruel
feeling, brought about by a distorted sense of gratitude, to wish evil
to befall one whom one is bound in honour to succour.

XXVI. "My wish," argues our opponent, "does him no harm, because when
I wish for the danger I wish for the rescue at the same time." What you
mean by this is not that you do no wrong, but that you do less than if
you wished that the danger might befall him, without wishing for the
rescue. It is wicked to throw a man into the water in order that you may
pull him out, to throw him down that you may raise him up, or to shut
him up that you may release him. You do not bestow a benefit upon a man
by ceasing to wrong him, nor can it ever be a piece of good service to
anyone to remove from him a burden which you yourself imposed on him.
True, you may cure the hurt which you inflict, but I had rather that you
did not hurt me at all. You may gain my gratitude by curing me because I
am wounded, but not by wounding me in order that you may cure me: no man
likes scars except as compared with wounds, which he is glad to see thus
healed, though he had rather not have received them. It would be cruel
to wish such things to befall one from whom you had never received a
kindness; how much more cruel is it to wish that they may befall one in
whose debt you are.

XXVII. "I pray," replies he, "at the same time, that I may be able to
help him." In the first place, if I stop you short in the middle of your
prayer, it shows at once that you are ungrateful: I have not yet heard
what you wish to do for him; I have heard what you wish him to suffer.
You pray that anxiety and fear and even worse evil than th