You count it pleasure to surrender your miserable body to sluggish ease, to court a repose that differs not much from sleep, to lurk in a covert of thick shade and beguile the lethargy of a languid mind with the most delicate thoughts, which you call tranquility, and in the secret retreats of your gardens to stuff with food and drink your bodies that are pallid from inaction; we count it pleasure to give benefits, even at the price of labor, if only they will lighten the labors of others, even at the price of danger, if only they will extricate others from dangers, even at the expense of burdening our budgets, if only they will relieve the needs and distresses of others. What difference does it make whether my benefits are returned? Even after they have been returned, they must be given again. A benefit views the interest, not of ourselves, but of the one upon whom it is bestowed; otherwise, it is to ourselves that we give it. And so many services that confer the utmost advantage on others lose claim to gratitude because they are paid for. The trader renders service to cities, the physician to the sick, the slave-monger to those he sells; but all these, because they arrive at the good of others through seeking their own, do not leave those whom they serve under any obligation. That which has gain as its object cannot be a benefit. “I shall give so much and get so much in return” is pure barter.