L. Annaeus Seneca on Benefits
swear to give up your suit against my father, I will run you through
with this sword. It is in your power to decide how my father shall be
freed from his prosecutor." The tribune swore, and kept his oath; he
related the reason of his abandonment of his action to an assembly at
the Rostra. No other man was ever permitted to put down a tribune with
impunity.
XXXVIII. There are instances without number of men who have saved their
parents from danger, have raised them from the lowest to the highest
station, and, taking them from the nameless mass of the lower classes,
have given them a name glorious throughout all ages. By no force of
words, by no power of genius, can one rightly express how desirable, how
admirable, how never to be erased from human memory it is to be able to
say, "I obeyed my parents, I gave way to them, I was submissive to their
authority whether it was just, or unjust and harsh; the only point in
which I resisted them was, not to be conquered by them in benefits."
Continue this struggle, I beg of you, and even though weary, yet re-form
your ranks. Happy are they who conquer, happy they who are conquered.
What can be more glorious than the youth who can say to himself--it
would not be right to say it to another--"I have conquered my father
with benefits"? What is more fortunate than that old man who declares
everywhere to everyone that he has been conquered in benefits by
his son? What, again, is more blissful than to be overcome in such a
contest?
BOOK IV.
I.
Of all the matters which we have discussed, Aebutius Liberalis, there is
none more essential, or which, as Sallust says, ought to be stated with
more care than that which is now before us: whether the bestowal of
benefits and the return of gratitude for them are desirable objects
in themselves. Some men are found who act honourably from commercial
motives, and who do not care for unrewarded virtue, though it can confer
no glory if it brings any profit. What can be more base than for a man
to consider what it costs him to be a good man, when virtue neither
allures by gain nor deters by loss, and is so far from bribing any one
with hopes and promises, that on the other hand she bids them spend
money upon herself, and often consists in voluntary gifts? We must go to
her, trampling what is merely useful under our feet: whithersoever she
may call us or send us we must go, without any regard for our private
fortunes, sometimes without sparing even our own blood, nor must we
ever refuse to obey any of her commands. "What shall I gain," says my
opponent, "if I do this bravely and gratefully?" You will gain the doing
of it--the deed itself is your gain. Nothing beyond this is promised. If
any advantage chances to accrue to you, count it as something extra.
The reward of honourable dealings lies in themselves. If honour is to be
sought after for itself, since a benefit is honourable, it follows that
because both of these are of the same nature, their conditions must also
be the same. Now it has frequently and satisfactorily been proved, that
honour ought to be sought after for itself alone.
II. In this part of the subject we oppose the Epicureans, an effeminate
and dreamy sect who philosophize in their own paradise, amongst whom
virtue is the handmaid of pleasures, obeys them, is subject to them,
and regards them as superior to itself. You say, "there is no pleasure
without virtue." But wherefore is it superior to virtue? Do you imagine
that the matter in dispute between them is merely one of precedence?
Nay, it is virtue itself and its powers which are in question. It cannot
be virtue if it can follow; the place of virtue is first, she ought to
lead, to command, to stand in the highest rank; you bid her look for a
cue to follow. "What," asks our opponent, "does that matter to you? I
also declare that happiness is impossible without virtue. Without virtue
I disapprove of and condemn the very pleasures which I pursue, and to
which I have surrendered myself. The only matter in dispute is this,
whether virtue be the cause of the highest good, or whether it be itself
the highest good." Do you suppose, though this be the only point in
question, that it is a mere matter of precedence? It is a confusion and
obvious blindness to prefer the last to the first. I am not angry at
virtue being placed below pleasure, but at her being mixed up at all
with pleasure, which she despises, whose enemy she is, and from which
she separates herself as far as possible, being more at home with labour
and sorrow, which are manly troubles, than with your womanish good
things.
III. It was necessary to insert this argument, my Liberalis, because
it is the part of virtue to bestow those benefits which we are now
discussing, and it is most disgraceful to bestow benefits for any other
purpose than that they should be free gifts. If we give with the hope of
receiving a return, we should give to the richest men, not to the most
deserving: whereas we prefer a virtuous poor man to an unmannerly rich
one. That is not a benefit, which takes into consideration the fortune
of the receiver. Moreover, if our only motive for benefiting others was
our own advantage, those who could most easily distribute benefits, such
as rich and powerful men, or kings, and persons who do not stand in need
of the help of others, ought never to do so at all; the gods would
not bestow upon us the countless blessings which they pour upon us
unceasingly by night and by day, for their own nature suffices them in
all respects, and renders them complete, safe, and beyond the reach of
harm; they will, therefore, never bestow a benefit upon any one, if self
and self interest be the only cause for the bestowal of benefits. To
take thought, not where your benefit will be best bestowed, but where
it may be most profitably placed at interest, from whence you will most
easily get it back, is not bestowal of benefits, but usury. Now the gods
have nothing to do with usury; it follows, therefore, that they cannot
be liberal; for if the only reason for giving is the advantage of the
giver, since God cannot hope to receive any advantages from us, there is
no cause why God should give anything.
IV. I know what answer may be made to this. "True; therefore God does
not bestow benefits, but, free from care and unmindful of us, He
turns away from our world and either does something else, or else does
nothing, which Epicurus thought the greatest possible happiness, and
He is not affected either by benefits or by injuries." The man who says
this cannot surely hear the voices of worshippers, and of those who all
around him are raising their hands to heaven and praying for the success
both of their private affairs and those of the state; which certainly
would not be the case, all men would not agree in this madness of
appealing to deaf and helpless gods, unless we knew that their benefits
are sometimes bestowed upon us unasked, sometimes in answer to our
prayers, and that they give us both great and seasonable gifts, which
shield us from the most terrible dangers. Who is there so poor, so
uncared for, born to sorrow by so unkind a fate, as never to have felt
the vast generosity of the Gods? Look even at those who complain and are
discontented with their lot; you will find that they are not altogether
without a share in the bounty of heaven, that there is no one upon whom
something has not been shed from that most gracious fount. Is the gift
which is bestowed upon all alike, at their birth, not enough? However
unequally the blessings of after life may be dealt out to us, did nature
give us too little when she gave us herself?
V. It is said, "God does not bestow benefits." Whence, then, comes all
that you possess, that you give or refuse to give, that you hoard or
steal? whence come these innumerable delights of our eyes, our ears, and
our minds? whence the plenty which provides us even with luxury--for it
is not our bare necessities alone against which provision is made;
we are loved so much as actually to be pampered--whence so many trees
bearing various fruits, so many wholesome herbs, so many different sorts
of food distributed throughout the year, so that even the slothful may
find sustenance in the chance produce of the earth? Then, too, whence
come the living creatures of all kinds, some inhabiting the dry land,
others the waters, others alighting from the sky, that every part of
nature may pay us some tribute; the rivers which encircle our meadows
with most beauteous bends, the others which afford a passage to merchant
fleets as they flow on, wide and navigable, some of which in summer
time are subject to extraordinary overflowings in order that lands lying
parched under a glowing sun may suddenly be watered by the rush of a
midsummer torrent?
What of the fountains of medicinal waters? What of the bursting forth of
warm waters upon the seashore itself? Shall I
"Tell of the seas round Italy that flow,
Which laves her shore above, and which below;
Or of her lakes, unrivalled Larius, thee,
Or thee, Benacus, roaring like a sea?"
VI. If any one gave you a few acres, you would say that you had received
a benefit; can you deny that the boundless extent of the earth is a
benefit? If any one gave you money, and filled your chest, since you
think that so important, you would call that a benefit. God has buried
countless mines in the earth, has poured out from the earth countless
rivers, rolling sands of gold; He has concealed in every place huge
masses of silver, copper and iron, and has bestowed upon you the means
of discovering them, placing upon the surface of the earth signs of the
treasures hidden below; and yet do you say that you have received
no benefit? If a house were given you, bright with marble, its roof
beautifully painted with colours and gilding, you would call it no small
benefit. God has built for you a huge mansion that fears no fire or
ruin, in which you see no flimsy veneers, thinner than the very saw with
which they are cut, but vast blocks of most precious stone, all composed
of those various and different substances whose paltriest fragments you
admire so much; he has built a roof which glitters in one fashion by
day, and in another by night; and yet do you say that you have received
no benefit? When you so greatly prize what you possess, do you act the
part of an ungrateful man, and think that there is no one to whom you
are indebted for them? Whence comes the breath which you draw? the light
by which you arrange and perform all the actions of your life? the blood
by whose circulation your vital warmth is maintained? those meats
which excite your palate by their delicate flavour after your hunger is
appeased? those provocatives which rouse you when wearied with pleasure?
that repose in which you are rotting and mouldering? Will you not, if
you are grateful, say--
"'Tis to a god that this repose I owe,
For him I worship, as a god below.
Oft on his altar shall my firstlings bleed,
See, by his bounty here with rustic reed
I play the airs I love the livelong day,
The while my oxen round about me stray."
The true God is he who has placed, not a few oxen, but all the herds on
their pastures throughout the world; who furnishes food to the flocks
wherever they wander; who has ordained the alternation of summer and
winter pasturage, and has taught us not merely to play upon a reed, and
to reduce to some order a rustic and artless song, but who has invented
so many arts and varieties of voice, so many notes to make music,
some with our own breath, some with instruments. You cannot call our
inventions our own any more than you call our growth our own, or the
various bodily functions which correspond to each stage of our lives; at