This, too, is a common question: “If two brothers are at variance, and I save the life of one, do I give a benefit to the other who will probably regret that the brother he hated did not die?” There can be no doubt that to render a service to a man even against his will is a benefit, just as he who has rendered a service against his will has not given a benefit. “Do you,” you ask, “call that which vexes him, which torments him a benefit?” Yes, many benefits are, on their face, stern and harsh, such as the cures wrought by surgery and cautery and confinement in chains. The point to consider is, not whether anyone is made unhappy, but whether he ought to be made happy, by receiving a benefit; a coin is not necessarily a bad one because a barbarian who does not know the government stamp has rejected it. A man both hates, and yet accepts, a benefit provided that it does him good, provided that the giver gave it in order that it might do him good. It makes no difference whether anyone accepts a good thing with a bad spirit or not. Come, consider the converse case. A man hates his brother, but it is to his advantage to keep him; if I have killed the brother, I do not do him a benefit, although he may say that it is, and be glad of it. It is a very artful enemy who gets thanked for the injury he has done!
“I understand; a thing that does good is a benefit, a thing that does harm is not a benefit. But see here, I will give you an instance where neither good nor harm is done, and yet the act will be a benefit. Suppose I have found the corpse of someone’s father in a lonely place, and bury it. I have done no good either to the man himself (for what difference would it make to him in what fashion he rotted?), or to the son (for what advantage does he gain by the act?).”
I will tell you what he has gained. Using me as his instrument, he has performed a customary and necessary duty; I supplied to his father what he would have wished, what it would also have been his duty, to supply himself. Yet such an act becomes a benefit only if I performed it, not out of the sense of pity and humanity that would lead me to hide away anybody’s corpse, but because I recognized the body, and supposed that I was rendering a service to the son. But, if I have thrown earth over an unknown dead man, I have by the act made no one my debtor for this service — I am just generally humane.
But some one will say: “Why do you take so much trouble to discover to whom you should give a benefit as though you intended to ask repayment some day? There are some who think that repayment ought never to be asked, and the reasons they adduce are these. An unworthy person will not make return even when he is asked to do so, and the worthy man will repay of his own accord. Moreover, if you have given to a good man, be patient; do not do him an injustice by dunning him, as though he would not have made return of his own accord. If you have given to a bad man, you must blame yourself; but do not spoil a benefit by making it a loan. Besides, the law, by not bidding you to ask repayment, forbids you.”
These are mere words. So long as I have no pressing need, so long as I am not forced by fortune, I would rather lose a benefit than ask for repayment. If, however, the safety of my children is at stake, if my wife is threatened with danger, if the safety of my country and my liberty impel me to a course that I should prefer not to take, I shall conquer my scruples, and bear witness that I have done everything to avoid needing the help of an ungrateful person; the necessity of receiving a return of my benefit will at last overcome my reluctance to ask a return. Again, when I give a benefit to a good man, I do so with the intention of never asking a return unless it should be necessary.