OF all the questions that we have discussed, Aebutius Liberalis, none can seem so essential, or to need, as Sallust puts it, such careful treatment, as the one that is now before us — whether to bestow a benefit and to return gratitude for it are in themselves desirable ends.
Some are to be found who cultivate honorable practices for the recompense, and care nothing for virtue that is unrewarded; whereas it has nothing glorious in it if it shows any element of profit. For what is more shameful than for anyone to calculate the value to a man of being good, since Virtue neither invites by the prospect of gain, nor deters by the prospect of loss, and, so far is she from bribing any man with hopes and promises, that, on the contrary, she bids him spend upon her, and is more often found in voluntary contributions. We must go to her, trampling under foot all self-interest; whithersoever she calls, whithersoever she sends us we must go, without any regard for our fortunes, sometimes even without sparing our own blood, and we must never refuse her demands. “And what shall I gain,” you ask, “if I do this bravely, if I do it gladly?” Only the gain of having done it — she promises you nothing besides. If you should chance to encounter some profit, count it as something additional. The reward of virtuous acts lies in the acts themselves. If a virtuous act is in itself a desirable end, if, further, a benefit is a virtuous act, it follows that, since they bear the same nature, they cannot be subject to a different condition. But that the virtuous course is in itself a desirable end has been often and abundantly proved.