Can there be any doubt that the opposite of a benefit is an injury? Just as doing an injury is something that in itself must be avoided and shunned, so giving a benefit is something that is desirable in itself. In one case, the baseness of the action outweighs all the rewards that urge us to the crime, in the other, we are incited to the action by the idea of virtue, which is in itself a powerful incentive. I shall not be guilty of misstatement if I say that everyone takes delight in the benefits he does, that everyone is so disposed that he is made more happy by seeing the one upon whom he has heaped benefits, that everyone finds in the fact of having given one benefit a reason for giving a second one. And this would not happen if the benefits themselves were not the source of his pleasure. How often will you hear a man say: “I cannot bear to desert him, for I have given him his life, I have rescued him from peril. He now begs me to plead his cause against men of influence; I do not want to, but what can I do? I have already helped him once, no, twice.” Do you not see that there is, inherent in the thing itself, some peculiar power that compels us to give benefits, first, because we ought, then, because we have already given them? Though in the beginning we may have had no reason for bestowing anything upon a man, we continue to bestow because we have already bestowed; and so untrue is it that we are moved to give benefits from a motive of profit, that we persist in maintaining and cherishing those that are unprofitable, solely from an affection for the benefit, to which, even though it has been unfortunately placed, we show indulgence as naturally as we might to children who misbehave.