please to themselves and keep it, but that I
speak of imperfect beings struggling to follow the right path, who often
have trouble in bending their passions to their will. I must therefore
choose the man from whom I will accept a benefit; indeed, I ought to be
more careful in the choice of my creditor for a benefit than for money;
for I have only to pay the latter as much as I received of him, land
when I have paid it I am free from all obligation; but to the other I
must both repay more, and even when I have repaid his kindness we remain
connected, for when I have paid my debt I ought again to renew it,
while our friendship endures unbroken. Thus, as I ought not to make an
unworthy man my friend, so I ought not to admit an unworthy man into
that most holy bond of gratitude for benefits, from which friendship
arises. You reply, "I cannot always say 'No': sometimes I must receive a
benefit even against my will. Suppose I were given something by a cruel
and easily offended tyrant, who would take it as an affront if his
bounty were slighted? am I not to accept it? Suppose it were offered by
a pirate, or a brigand, or a king of the temper of a pirate or brigand.
What ought I to do? Such a man is not a worthy object for me to owe a
benefit to." When I say that you ought to choose, I except vis major
and fear, which destroy all power of choice. If you are free, if it lies
with you to decide whether you will or not, then you will turn over in
your own mind whether you will take a gift from a man or not; but if
your position makes it impossible for you to choose, then be assured
that you do not receive a gift, you merely obey orders. No one incurs
any obligation by receiving what it was not in his power to refuse; if
you want to know whether I wish to take it, arrange matters so that I
have the power of saying 'No.' "Yet suppose he gave you your life." It
does not matter what the gift was, unless it be given and received with
good will: you are not my preserver because you have saved my life.
Poison sometimes acts as a medicine, yet it is not on that account
regarded as wholesome. Some things benefit us but put us under no
obligation: for instance a man who intended to kill a tyrant, cut with
his sword a tumour from which he suffered: yet the tyrant did not show
him gratitude because by wounding him he had healed a disease which
surgeons had feared to meddle with.

XIX. You see that the actual thing itself is not of much importa