L. Annaeus Seneca on Benefits
is there to be one only for all, though the benefits which they have
received are different? or should the punishment be varying, greater
or less according to the benefit which each has received? Are our
valuations to be restricted to pecuniary fines? what are we to do,
seeing that in some cases the benefit conferred is life, and things
dearer than life? What punishment is to be assigned to ingratitude for
these? One less than the benefit? That would be unjust. One equal to it;
death? What could be more inhuman than to cause benefits to result in
cruelty?
XI. It may be argued, "Parents have certain privileges: these are
regarded as exempt from the action of ordinary rules, and so also ought
to be the case with other beneficent persons." Nay; mankind has
assigned a peculiar sanctity to the position of parents, because it
was advantageous that children should be reared, and people had to be
tempted into undergoing the toil of doing so, because the issue of their
experiment was doubtful. One cannot say to them, as one does to others
who bestow benefits, "Choose the man to whom you give: you must only
blame yourself if you are deceived; help the deserving." In rearing
children nothing depends upon the judgment of those who rear them; it is
a matter of hope: in order, therefore, that people may be more willing
to embark upon this lottery, it was right that they should be given a
certain authority; and since it is useful for youth to be governed, we
have placed their parents in the position of domestic magistrates, under
whose guardianship their lives may be ruled. Moreover, the position of
parents differs from that of other benefactors, for their having given
formerly to their children does not stand in the way of their giving
now and hereafter; and also, there is no fear of their falsely asserting
that they have given: with others one has to inquire not only whether
they have received, but whether they have given; but the good deeds of
parents are placed beyond doubt. In the next place, one benefit bestowed
by parents is the same for all, and might be counted once for all;
while the others which they bestow are of various kinds, unlike one to
another, differing from one another by the widest possible intervals;
they can therefore come under no regular rule, since it would be more
just to leave them all unrewarded than to give the same reward to all.
XII. Some benefits cost much to the givers, some are of much value
to the receivers but cost the givers nothing. Some are bestowed upon
friends, others on strangers: now although that which is given be the
same, yet it becomes more when it is given to one with whom you
are beginning to be acquainted through the benefits which you have
previously conferred upon him. One man may give us help, another
distinctions, a third consolation. You may find one who thinks nothing
pleasanter or more important than to have some one to save him from
distress; you may again find one who would rather be helped to great
place than to security; while some consider themselves more indebted to
those who save their lives than to those who save their honour. Each
of these services will be held more or less important, according as the
disposition of our judge inclines to one or the other of them. Besides
this, I choose my creditors for myself, whereas I often receive benefits
from those from whom I would not, and sometimes I am laid under an
obligation without my knowledge. What will you do in such a case? When
a man has received a benefit unknown to himself, and which, had he known
of it, he would have refused to receive, will you call him ungrateful if
he does not repay it, however he may have received it? Suppose that some
one has bestowed a benefit upon me, and that the same man has afterwards
done me some wrong; am I to be bound by his one bounty to endure with
patience any wrong that he may do me, or will it be the same as if I had
repaid it, because he himself has by the subsequent wrong cancelled his
own benefit? How, in that case, would you decide which was the greater;
the present which the man has received, or the injury which has
been done him? Time would fail me if I attempted to discuss all the
difficulties which would arise.
XIII. It may be argued that "we render men less willing to confer
benefits by not supporting the claim of those which have been bestowed
to meet with gratitude, and by not punishing those who repudiate them."
But you would find, on the other hand, that men would be far less
willing to receive benefits, if by so doing they were likely to incur
the danger of having to plead their cause in court, and having more
difficulty in proving their integrity. This legislation would also
render us less willing to give: for no one is willing to give to those
who are unwilling to receive, but one who is urged to acts of kindness
by his own good nature and by the beauty of charity, will give all the
more freely to those who need make no return unless they choose. It
impairs the credit of doing a service, if in doing it we are carefully
protected from loss.
XIV. "Benefits, then, will be fewer, but more genuine: well, what harm
is there in restricting people from giving recklessly?" Even those who
would have no legislation upon the subject follow this rule, that we
ought to be somewhat careful in giving, and in choosing those upon whom
we bestow favours. Reflect over and over again to whom you are giving:
you will have no remedy at law, no means of enforcing repayment. You are
mistaken if you suppose that the judge will assist you: no law will
make full restitution to you, you must look only to the honour of the
receiver. Thus only can benefits retain their influence, and thus only
are they admirable: you dishonour them if you make them the grounds of
litigation, "Pay what you owe" is a most just proverb; and one which
carries with it the sanction of all nations; but in dealing with
benefits it is most shameful. "Pay!" How is a man to pay who owes his
life, his position, his safety, or his reason to another? None of the
greatest benefits can be repaid. "Yet," it is said, "you ought to give
in return for them something of equal value." This is just what I have
been saying, that the grandeur of the act is ruined if we make our
benefits commercial transactions. We ought hot to encourage ourselves in
avarice, in discontent, or in quarrels; the human mind is prone enough
to these by nature. As far as we are able, let us check it, and cut off
the opportunities for which it seeks.
XV. Would that we could indeed persuade men to receive back money which
they have lent from those debtors only who are willing to pay! would
that no agreement ever bound the buyer to the seller, and that their
interests were not protected by sealed covenants and agreements, but
rather by honour and a sense of justice! However, men prefer what
is needful to what is truly best, and choose rather to force their
creditors to keep faith with them than to trust that they will do so.
Witnesses are called on both sides; the one, by calling in brokers,
makes several names appear in his accounts as his debtors instead of
one; the other is not content with the legal forms of question and
answer unless he holds the other party by the hand. What a shameful
admission of the dishonesty and wickedness of mankind! men trust more to
our signet-rings than to our intentions. For what are these respectable
men summoned? for what do they impress their seals? it is in order that
the borrower may not deny that he has received what he has received.
You regard these men, I suppose, as above bribes, as maintainers of the
truth: well, these very men will not be entrusted with money except on
the same terms. Would it not, then, be more honourable to be deceived
by some than to suspect all men of dishonesty? To fill up the measure
of avarice one thing only is lacking, that we should bestow no benefit
without a surety. To help, to be of service, is the part of a generous
and noble mind; he who gives acts like a god, he who demands repayment
acts like a money-lender. Why then, by trying to protect the rights of
the former class, should we reduce them to the level of the basest of
mankind?
XVI. "More men," our opponent argues, "will be ungrateful, if no legal
remedy exists against ingratitude." Nay, fewer, because then benefits
will be bestowed with more discrimination, In the next place, it is not
advisable that it should be publicly known how many ungrateful men there
are: for the number of sinners will do away with the disgrace of
the sin, and a reproach which applies to all men will cease to be
dishonourable. Is any woman ashamed of being divorced, now that some
noble ladies reckon the years of their lives, not by the number of the
consuls, but by that of their husbands, now that they leave their
homes in order to marry others, and marry only in order to be divorced?
Divorce was only dreaded as long as it was unusual; now that no gazette
appears without it, women learn to do what they hear so much about. Can
any one feel ashamed of adultery, now that things have come to such
a pass that no woman keeps a husband at all unless it be to pique her
lover? Chastity merely implies ugliness. Where will you find any woman
so abject, so repulsive, as to be satisfied with a single pair of
lovers, without having a different one for each hour of the day; nor is
the day long enough for all of them, unless she has taken her airing
in the grounds of one, and passes the night with another. A woman is
frumpish and old-fashioned if she does not know that "adultery with one
paramour is nick-named marriage." Just as all shame at these vices has
disappeared since the vice itself became so widely spread, so if you
made the ungrateful begin to count their own numbers, you would both
make them more numerous, and enable them to be ungrateful with greater
impunity.
XVII. "What then? shall the ungrateful man go unpunished?" What then,
I answer, shall we punish the undutiful, the malicious, the avaricious,
the headstrong, and the cruel? Do you imagine that those things which
are loathed are not punished, or do you suppose that any punishment is
greater than the hate of all men? It is a punishment not to dare receive
a benefit from anyone, not to dare to bestow one, to be, or to fancy
that you are a mark for all men's eyes, and to lose all appreciation of
so excellent and pleasant a matter. Do you call a man unhappy who has
lost his sight, or whose hearing has been impaired by disease, and do
you not call him wretched who has lost the power of feeling benefits? He
fears the gods, the witnesses of all ingratitude; he is tortured by
the thought of the benefit which he has misapplied, and, in fine, he is
sufficiently punished by this great penalty, that, as I said before, he
cannot enjoy the fruits of this most delightful act. On the other hand,
he who takes pleasure in receiving a benefit, enjoys an unvarying and
continuous happiness, which he derives from consideration, not of
the thing given, but of the intention of the giver. A benefit gives
perpetual joy to a grateful man, but pleases an ungrateful one only for
a moment. Can the lives of such men be compared, seeing that the one
is sad and gloomy--as it is natural that a denier of his debts and a
defrauder should be, a man who does not give his parents, his nurses, or
his teachers the honour which is their due--while the other is joyous,
cheerful, on the watch for an opportunity of proving his gratitude, and
gaining much pleasure from this frame of mind itself? Such a man has no
wish to become bankrupt, but only to make the fullest and most copious
return for benefits, and that not only to parents and friends, but also
to more humble persons; for even if he receives a benefit from his