Book I: The Morally Right
1. Philosophy and Public Speaking
My son Marcus, after a year studying under Cratippus in Athens, you should be well acquainted with the principles of philosophy. Both your teacher and the city have outstanding authority: he can enrich you with knowledge, and the city with examples. Yet I have always found it useful to combine Latin with Greek, both in philosophy and in my training as a public speaker. I think you should do the same, so that you can express yourself equally well in either language.
In this respect, I believe I have been of considerable service to my fellow citizens. People unfamiliar with Greek literature, as well as highly educated readers, think they have gained something from my writings, both in public speaking and in philosophical discussion. You will therefore remain the pupil of the foremost philosopher of our time for as long as you choose, which should be as long as you can benefit from his instruction. But reading my writings will certainly give you a fuller command of Latin. They differ very little from the Peripatetics, since both they and I consider ourselves disciples of Socrates and Plato. On the subjects we discuss, however, I want you to exercise your own judgment freely.
Nor should I be considered presumptuous for saying this. In the study of philosophy, many may surpass me. But if I claim the qualities that properly belong to an orator, aptness, clarity, and elegance of expression, I have some right to that claim, since I have spent my life pursuing them. I therefore earnestly urge you, my Cicero, to read carefully not only my speeches but also my philosophical books, which are already nearly as extensive as the speeches. Oratory has greater force of expression, but the more even and moderate style of philosophical writing should also be cultivated.
Indeed, I do not see that any Greek author has practiced both styles, pursuing courtroom eloquence and calm philosophical discussion together. Perhaps an exception is Demetrius of Phalerum, a sharp debater and also an orator. Though he lacked great power, he had a winning grace that marked him as a disciple of Theophrastus. Let others judge how proficient I have become in either style; I have certainly pursued both.
I also think that Plato, had he chosen to attempt courtroom eloquence, would have spoken with equal fluency and power. Demosthenes, had he retained what he learned from Plato and wished to put it into writing, would have written with both grace and grandeur. I hold the same opinion of Aristotle and Isocrates. Each was so captivated by his own field that he held the other field in low regard.
2. Duty and the Supreme Good
I have decided to write something expressly for your benefit now, and much more later. I think it best to begin with what most suits both your age and my authority as your father. Philosophers have discussed many important and useful subjects with precision and thoroughness. But their teachings and rules concerning the duties of life seem to have the broadest reach.
No part of life can be free from the claims of duty, whether in public or private affairs, abroad or at home, in personal conduct or in relations with others. All the honor of life lies in fulfilling duty, and all its shame in neglecting it. This subject, too, is common to all philosophers. Who would dare call himself a philosopher if he took no account of duty?
Yet some schools of philosophy utterly distort duty through their account of the supreme good and its opposite, the greatest evil. Anyone who separates the supreme good from virtue and measures it by his own convenience rather than by moral right cannot cultivate friendship, justice, or generosity, if he is consistent and is not sometimes overcome by his natural goodness. Nor can he be brave while regarding pain as the greatest evil, or temperate while regarding pleasure as the supreme good. These points are too obvious to need discussion, though I have discussed them elsewhere.
Those schools, therefore, can say nothing about duty if they remain consistent. Firm, unchanging rules of duty that accord with nature can be set out only by those who maintain that moral right should be sought solely, or chiefly, for its own sake. This belongs to the Stoics, the Academics, and the Peripatetics. The views of Ariston, Pyrrho, and Herillus were discredited long ago. They might nevertheless have fittingly discussed duty if they had left any basis for preferring one thing to another, and thus any way of determining duty. In this work I will follow the Stoics, drawing from their sources according to my own discretion and judgment, as much and in whatever way seems best, rather than translating them.
Since duty is my sole subject, however, I think it appropriate to define it at the outset. I am surprised that Panaetius did not do so. Any reasoned treatment of a subject should begin with a definition, so that readers understand what the author is writing about.
3. The Divisions of Duty
The discussion of duty has two branches. One concerns the supreme good considered in itself; the other concerns the rules by which every part of life can be brought into conformity with it. The first includes questions such as whether all duties impose a perfect obligation, whether one duty is greater than another, and similar inquiries. The duties for which rules are laid down also relate to the supreme good, as means to an end. This connection is less obvious, however, because they seem more concerned with arranging everyday life. These are the duties I will discuss in this work.
There is another division of duty as well: ordinary duty and perfect duty. We may, I think, call what is absolutely morally right a perfect duty, the Greek term being katorthōma. Ordinary duty is what the Greeks call kathēkon. According to their definitions, what is right in itself is a perfect duty; an action for which a satisfactory reason can be given is an ordinary duty.
According to Panaetius, three questions must be considered when deciding what we ought to do. First, we must determine whether the proposed action is morally right or wrong, a matter on which opinions often differ. Next, we may inquire or seek advice about whether the action promotes comfort and pleasure, abundance and ready access to external goods, wealth, power, or, in short, the means of benefiting ourselves and those who depend on us. Here the question concerns advantage.
The third class of cases arises when what appears advantageous seems to conflict with moral right. When advantage takes hold of us, as though by force, while moral right seems to call us back, the mind is torn and troubled on both sides about what to do.
But this division leaves out two questions, although a division should certainly be complete. We commonly ask not only whether an action is morally right or wrong, but also which of two right actions is more right. Similarly, we ask which of two advantageous actions is more advantageous. Thus the division that Panaetius thought should have three parts should have five. I will therefore first discuss moral right under two headings, then advantage in the same way, and finally their apparent conflict.
4. Human Nature and Moral Right
From the beginning, animals of every species were endowed with an instinct to protect their lives and bodily well-being, avoid whatever threatens them with harm, and seek and provide the necessities of life, such as food, shelter, and other things of this kind. All animals also share an appetite for sexual union to produce offspring, together with some degree of care for their young.
But there is an essential difference between human beings and beasts. A beast, moved by the senses alone, adapts only to what is present in place and time, with very little awareness of the past or future. A human being, by contrast, possesses reason. Through it he discerns consequences, sees the causes of things, understands how events begin and develop, compares similar things, and connects the future with the present. He can therefore readily survey the whole course of life and provide what it requires.
Through reason, nature also brings human beings into mutual communication and society. It creates in a man a special love for his children, prompts him to promote and attend social gatherings and public assemblies, and awakens a desire to provide enough support and nourishment for more than himself. He seeks to provide for his wife, his children, and others whom he holds dear and is bound to protect. This concern stimulates people’s minds and makes them more effective in action.
The search for and investigation of truth are also distinctive human qualities. When free from necessary work, we want to see, hear, or learn something. We consider knowledge of hidden or remarkable things essential to living happily and well.
Connected with this desire to see the truth is a certain desire for preeminence. A man well endowed by nature is willing to obey only an instructor, a teacher, or someone who exercises just and legitimate authority for the common good. From this arise greatness of mind and disregard for the changes of human fortune.
Nature and reason also show considerable power in this: of all animals, human beings alone have a sense of order, propriety, and moderation in action and speech. No other animal perceives beauty, elegance, and symmetry in what it sees. Through nature and reason, a human being transfers these qualities from the eyes to the mind. He judges that beauty, consistency, and order must be preserved even more carefully in intentions and actions. He takes care to do nothing improper or effeminate, and, still more, to admit nothing lustful into his thoughts or deeds.
These are the elements from which moral right, the subject of our inquiry, is formed. Even if it receives no title of honor, it is still honorable. Even if no one praises it, we rightly declare it worthy of all praise by its very nature.
5. The Four Sources of Moral Right
You see, my son Marcus, the very shape and, as it were, the face of moral right. If it could be seen with the eyes, as Plato says, it would awaken the most intense love of wisdom. Whatever is morally right springs from one of four sources. It consists either in perceiving and skillfully handling truth; in maintaining fellowship with others, giving everyone their due, and keeping faith in contracts and promises; in the greatness and strength of a lofty and unconquered mind; or in the order and measure that constitute moderation and temperance.
These four are connected and intertwined, yet particular kinds of duty arise from each. From the first, which includes wisdom and prudence, come the investigation and discovery of truth, the distinctive work of that virtue. The more clearly someone sees the deepest and essential truth about a subject, and the more sharply and readily he can demonstrate it, the more he is regarded, and rightly, as exceptionally discerning and wise. Truth is therefore the subject matter with which this virtue deals.
The other three virtues concern providing and preserving the things on which the conduct of life depends. Their purpose is to maintain the fellowship and unity of society and to display superiority and greatness of mind. These qualities show themselves not only in increasing resources and acquiring desirable things for oneself and one’s dependents, but much more in rising to a position from which one can look down on those very things.
Order, consistency, moderation, and similar qualities apply to affairs that require outward action as well as mental activity. By bringing a certain method and order to everyday concerns, we will preserve honor and fitting conduct.
6. Knowledge and Active Duty
Of the four sources into which I have divided the nature and power of moral right, the first, knowledge of truth, has the closest relation to human nature. We are all drawn toward knowledge and wisdom. We consider it admirable to excel in them, but both an evil and a disgrace to fail, to be mistaken, to be ignorant, or to be deceived.
In this natural and morally right pursuit of knowledge, two faults must be avoided. The first is treating the unknown as known and accepting it too hastily. Anyone who wishes to escape this fault, as everyone should, will give time and careful attention to reflecting on the matters presented for consideration. The other fault is devoting excessive enthusiasm and effort to things that are obscure and difficult, yet useless. Once these faults are avoided, any effort and care given to subjects worthy of a virtuous mind and worth knowing deserve praise.
Thus we learn that Gaius Sulpicius was well versed in astronomy, as I myself knew Sextus Pompeius to be in geometry. Many are skilled in logic, and many in civil law. All these disciplines concern the investigation of truth. But duty does not allow their pursuit to draw us away from actively conducting affairs. For the reputation of virtue rests entirely on active life. Yet there are often breaks from action, with frequent opportunities to return to the pursuit of knowledge. At the same time, mental activity, which never ceases, may keep us reflecting on our studies without conscious effort.
But all thought and mental activity should be devoted either to deliberating about what is morally right and belongs to a good and happy life, or to pursuing wisdom and knowledge. I have now discussed the first source of duty.
7. Justice and Human Fellowship
Of the remaining three subjects, the principle that binds human society together and creates a shared life has the widest scope. It has two divisions: justice, which gives virtue its greatest splendor and earns those who possess it the name of good people; and beneficence, closely allied with justice, which may also be called kindness or generosity.
Justice first requires that no one harm another unless provoked by injury. Next, it requires that we use common possessions as common, and private possessions as belonging to their owners. Private possessions are not private by nature. They become so through ancient occupation, as when settlers occupy a previously uninhabited region; through conquest, as with territory acquired in war; or through law, treaty, agreement, or lot. Thus the territory of Arpinas is said to belong to the Arpinates, and that of Tusculum to the Tusculans. Individual ownership has a similar basis. Since each person owns a portion of what was common by nature, let each keep undisturbed what has come into his possession. Anyone who tries to get more for himself will violate the law of human society.
But, as Plato has well said, we are not born for ourselves alone. Our country claims a share in us, our parents a share, and our friends a share. According to the Stoics, whatever the earth produces is created for human use, while human beings were brought into existence for the sake of other human beings, so that they might do good to one another. Here we should follow nature as our guide. We should contribute our share to the common good and strengthen human fellowship through an exchange of kind services, both giving and receiving, using our skill, our labor, and the resources at our command.
The foundation of justice is good faith: steadfastness and truthfulness in promises and agreements. So, although some may think it too far-fetched, I venture to imitate the Stoics in their painstaking investigation of word origins, and derive the Latin word for faith from the act that fulfills a promise.
There are two kinds of injustice. One belongs to those who inflict injury; the other to those who fail to protect the injured when they can. A person who, moved by anger or some disturbance of mind, unjustly attacks another is like someone who lays violent hands on a chance companion. Someone who can ward off or resist an injury to another but fails to do so is as much at fault as if he deserted his parents, his friends, or his country.
Indeed, deliberate injuries inflicted for the sake of doing harm often arise from fear. Someone who plans to harm another fears that, if he refrains, he may suffer harm himself. Most often, however, people injure others to obtain what they covet, and greed is the most frequent motive.
8. Greed, Ambition, and Injury
People seek wealth sometimes for life’s necessities, sometimes to indulge in luxury. Those with a higher cast of mind desire money to increase their influence and their ability to give generously. Not long ago, Marcus Crassus declared that no property was enough for someone who intended to hold a leading position in the republic unless its income could support an army. Others delight in magnificent furniture and an elegant, lavish way of life. All these motives have produced an unbounded desire for money. Increasing one’s property without harming anyone is not blameworthy, but wrongdoing for gain must never be tolerated.
Above all, the craving for military commands, civic honors, and fame leads great numbers of people to lose sight of justice. The saying of Ennius has a much wider application:
“Where kingship is concerned,
No social bond or covenant is sacred.”
Whenever only a few can hold the foremost place, rivalry is generally so fierce that it becomes extremely difficult to keep one’s duty to society intact. This was recently illustrated by the audacity of Gaius Caesar. He overturned every law, human and divine, to obtain the sovereignty he had imagined for himself in his fanciful dreams. It is indeed unfortunate that the desire for civil and military office, power, and fame is prevalent chiefly among people with the greatest minds and extraordinary genius. We must therefore take all the more care to avoid criminal conduct in this pursuit.
In every kind of injustice, however, it makes an essential difference whether someone commits a wrong in a disturbance of mind, usually brief and temporary, or deliberately and with premeditation. Acts prompted by a sudden impulse are more forgivable than those planned beforehand. Enough has now been said about inflicting injury.
9. The Duty to Defend Others
There are many common reasons for failing to defend the injured and thus abandoning duty. People sometimes shrink from the hostility, effort, or expense that such a defense involves. Or, through carelessness, laziness, sluggishness, or absorption in their own pursuits and work, they are so slow to act that they leave undefended those they ought to protect.
We can see, then, that Plato is not entirely right when he says philosophers are just because they investigate truth and despise and count as nothing what most people eagerly seek and are always ready to fight one another for. They do achieve one part of justice by injuring no one, but they fail in the other. Their zeal for learning keeps them inactive, and they abandon those they ought to defend. Plato also thinks they will take no part in public affairs unless compelled. Yet it would be more fitting for them to do so willingly. The very act that is right can be called virtuous only if it is voluntary.
Others, either through excessive concern for their property or dislike of humanity, profess to attend only to their own affairs. They want to avoid even the appearance of injuring anyone. They are free from one kind of injustice but fall into the other, for they abandon their duty to society, giving it neither care, effort, nor money.
We have now identified the causes of both kinds of injustice, having already determined what constitutes justice. We should therefore find it easy to recognize our specific duty on any particular occasion, unless excessive self-love blinds us. Still, taking care of other people’s concerns is difficult. Although Chremes in Terence’s play considers nothing human a matter of indifference to him, we perceive and feel our own good and bad fortune more keenly than what happens to others, which we see, as it were, from a great distance. So we judge their circumstances differently from how we would judge our own in the same situation. Those who tell us never to do anything whose fairness we doubt therefore give good advice. Fairness is self-evident; doubt implies a suspicion of wrong.
10. When Justice Changes Our Duties
Circumstances often arise in which actions generally considered worthy of a just and honorable person, such as returning something entrusted to him or keeping a promise, become the opposite of right. The demands of truthfulness and good faith seem to change, so that justice requires setting them aside. Here we should return to the fundamental principles of justice I have laid down: first, that no one should be injured, and next, that we should serve the common good. When circumstances alter how these principles apply, duty also changes; it is not always the same.
A promise or agreement may be harmful either to the person who received it or to the person who made it. To take an example from popular mythology, if Neptune had not kept his promise to Theseus, Theseus would not have lost his son Hippolytus. Neptune had promised to grant him three wishes. The third, as the story goes, was his angry demand for Hippolytus’s death, and its fulfillment plunged him into the deepest sorrow.
Promises should not be kept when keeping them harms those to whom they were made. Nor, if keeping a promise harms you more than it benefits the person you made it to, is it contrary to duty to prefer the greater good to the lesser. For example, suppose you agreed to represent someone in an upcoming lawsuit, and meanwhile your child became seriously ill. You would not fail in your duty to your client by breaking your promise. On the contrary, the person you made the promise to would fail in his duty if he complained that you had deserted him. Again, who does not see that promises forced from us through fear or obtained by fraud should not be kept? Indeed, such promises are made void in most cases by a praetor’s edict, and in some by explicit statutes.
Wrongs are also committed through a kind of trickery: an excessively subtle and therefore fraudulent interpretation of what is right. Hence the saying: The extreme of right is the extreme of wrong. Many violations of right in public administration fall under this heading. One man, during a thirty-day truce with an enemy, ravaged the enemy’s territory by night, claiming that the truce covered that many days, not nights.
Nor can we approve of our fellow citizen in the following story, if it is true. Quintus Fabius Labeo, or someone else (I know the matter only by hearsay), was appointed by the Senate to settle a boundary dispute between the people of Nola and those of Neapolis. When he arrived, he argued separately with each side that they should not be greedy or covetous but should reduce rather than extend their claims against each other. Both followed his advice, leaving some territory between these previously adjoining states. He then fixed their boundaries according to their respective claims and awarded the intervening territory to the Roman people. This was swindling, not arbitration. We must avoid cleverness of this kind in every transaction.
11. Justice in War and Victory
We also have certain duties toward those who have injured us. Revenge and punishment have their limits. Indeed, I am not sure it may not be enough for the person who provoked us to repent of his wrongdoing, so that he will not repeat it and others will be less inclined to follow his example.
In public administration, too, the rights of war must be held sacred. There are two ways of settling a conflict: discussion and force. Discussion properly belongs to human beings, force to beasts. We must resort to force if there is no opportunity for discussion. Wars should therefore be waged so that we can live in peace without injury. Once victory is won, however, we should spare those who have not been cruel and inhuman in war. Our ancestors even admitted the Tusculans, the Aequi, the Volsci, the Sabines, and the Hernici to citizenship, while they utterly destroyed Carthage and Numantia. I wish they had not destroyed Corinth. But I believe they had some motive, particularly its convenient location for hostile operations: they feared that its very position might encourage rebellion.
In my opinion, we should always seek peace when it can be made on entirely fair and honorable terms. Had my advice been followed in this matter, we would now have a republic of some kind, though not the best possible. We no longer have even that. Furthermore, while those you conquer should be treated kindly, those who lay down their arms and entrust themselves to the good faith of the attacking commander should have their lives spared, even if the battering ram has already shaken their walls.
Our people once observed justice in this so carefully that, by ancestral custom, those who received conquered states or nations into allegiance became their patrons. Indeed, the Roman people’s fecial law prescribes the rights of war with the most sacred care. From it we can understand that no war is just unless it follows a formal demand for redress of an injury, or an explicit declaration and proclamation of hostilities.
Popilius, as commander, governed a province. One of Cato’s sons served his first campaign in Popilius’s army. When Popilius decided to discharge one of the legions, he also discharged Cato’s son, who served in it. But the young man stayed in the army because he loved military service. Cato wrote to Popilius that, if he allowed his son to remain, he must have him take a second oath of military duty. Otherwise, since the term of his first oath had expired, he could not lawfully fight the enemy. This shows how scrupulously right was once observed in the conduct of war.
There is, indeed, a surviving letter from Marcus Cato the elder to his son Marcus. In it he writes that he has heard of his son’s discharge by the consul after service in Macedonia in the war with Perseus. He warns him not to go into battle, since it is not right for someone who is no longer a soldier to fight the enemy.
12. Enemies, Rivals, and Restraint
In this connection, I recall that in early times the word for an enemy engaged in actual warfare was the word used for a foreigner. The mildness of the term softened the harshness of the fact. Our ancestors called someone we would call a foreigner by the name we now give an enemy. The laws of the Twelve Tables show this, as in the phrases “A day assigned for trial with a foreigner” and “Perpetual right of ownership as against a foreigner.”
What could more truly show gentleness of spirit than calling someone you are at war with by so mild a name? Yet time has made the word harsher. It has ceased to mean a foreigner and has retained, as its proper meaning, an adversary in arms.
Even when a war is a contest for power and fame, the same just causes I named above should underlie the conflict. But wars fought for superiority in honor or dominion should be conducted with less bitterness than those fought to redress actual wrongs. We contend with a fellow citizen in one way if he is an enemy, and quite differently if he is a rival. With a rival the contest is for honor and advancement; with an enemy it is for life and reputation. Thus we fought the Celtiberi and Cimbri as enemies, to decide not who would emerge victorious, but who would survive. With the Latins, Sabines, Samnites, Carthaginians, and Pyrrhus, the contest was for superiority. The Carthaginians, it is true, violated their treaties, and Hannibal was cruel. The others were more trustworthy. What Pyrrhus said about returning the prisoners of war is admirable:
“I ask that you should give no gold, no price;
In war I ply no trade but sword with sword;
With steel, and not with gold, stake we our lives.
Wills queenly Fortune you or I should rule,
Try we by might. And bear this message with you:
For those whose prowess Fortune spared in battle
Freedom is also spared by my decree.
Lead them away (I grant); the gods approve.”
A truly royal sentiment, worthy of the race of the Aeacidae.
13. Good Faith, Even with Enemies
Furthermore, if someone under the pressure of circumstances makes a promise to a public enemy, he must keep that promise in good faith. Regulus, taken captive by the Carthaginians in the first Punic War, was sent to Rome to negotiate an exchange of prisoners and bound by an oath to return. On arriving, he first gave his opinion in the Senate that the prisoners should not be sent back. Then, when his relatives and friends tried to keep him there, he preferred to return to punishment rather than break faith with the enemy.
In the second Punic War, however, after the battle of Cannae, Hannibal sent ten men to Rome under an oath to return unless they secured the ransom of the prisoners of war. The censors deprived all ten of their civic rights for life because they had perjured themselves. Even the one who had incurred guilt by fraudulently fulfilling his oath did not escape. After Hannibal allowed him to leave the camp, he returned shortly afterward, saying he had forgotten something. Then he left the camp again, imagining that he had fulfilled his oath. He had done so only in words, not in fact. In a promise, we must always consider what you mean, not what you say.
Our ancestors gave the most illustrious example of justice toward an enemy when the Senate and Gaius Fabricius sent back to Pyrrhus a deserter who had promised the Senate to poison the king. They refused to sanction the murder of an enemy, even a powerful enemy who was waging war against them without provocation.
Enough has now been said about duties connected with war.
We must also remember to maintain justice even toward those of the lowest status. The lowest status and fortune are those of slaves. As has been well said, they should be treated as hired servants, assigned their daily tasks, and fairly compensated for their labor.
Finally, wrong can be done in two ways: by force or by fraud. Fraud seems to belong to the fox, force to the lion, and neither suits human beings. Of the two, however, fraud is more detestable. But no form of injustice is more heinous than that of people who practice fraud to the utmost of their ability while making themselves appear to be good people. Enough has been said about justice.
14. Generosity Guided by Justice
Next, as proposed, let us discuss kindness and generosity. Nothing is more in harmony with human nature, yet they require caution in several respects. First, we must take care that our kindness does not harm those we seem to benefit, or anyone else. Second, our generosity must not exceed our means. Third, our gifts should reflect the merits of those who receive them. This is a fundamental principle of justice that should guide everything we do for others.
People who give someone something likely to harm him should be regarded as harmful flatterers, rather than kind and generous benefactors. Those who injure some people to be generous to others are just as much in the wrong as if they had directly taken other people’s property for themselves. Yet many people, especially those hungry for display and fame, take from some what they intend to lavish on others. They think they will seem generous toward their friends if they enrich them, however they do it. But nothing could be further from duty or more contrary to it.
We must therefore make sure that, while our generosity benefits our friends, it injures no one. For this reason, the transfer of property by Lucius Sulla and Gaius Caesar from its rightful owners to people to whom it did not belong should not be considered generous. Nothing is generous unless it is also just.
The second caution is that our generosity should not exceed our means. People who want to give more than their property allows deserve blame, first because they are unjust toward their closest relatives. They give strangers what should meet their own families’ needs or be left to them for future use. Generosity of this kind is also accompanied, in almost every case, by a desire to seize other people’s property wrongfully to provide the means for extravagant giving. We can also see that many people act less from a generous nature than from a desire for the reputation of generosity. Much of what they do clearly comes from a wish to show off rather than from goodwill.
Third, as I said, kindness should take merit into account. We should consider the character of the person we might favor, his attitude toward us, how well we know him and how close we are, and any services he has previously done for us. Ideally, all these reasons for kindness should be present together. If some are absent, we must give greater weight to the reasons that are more numerous and more important.
15. Kindness, Gratitude, and Need
We do not live among people who are perfectly and faultlessly wise. We live among those in whom it is fortunate to find even a semblance of virtue. I therefore think we should aim to leave no one without our friendship who shows any trace of virtue. At the same time, those most richly endowed with the gentler virtues have the strongest claim to our help: moderation, self-control, and the justice about which I have said so much. In someone who is neither perfect nor wise, a bold and ambitious spirit is generally too impetuous. The virtues I have just named seem more consistent with the character of a truly good person.
So far, I have discussed only the character of those we should help. Next, as for their goodwill toward us, our first duty is to give most to those who hold us dearest. But we should judge their goodwill by the firmness and constancy of their attachment, rather than by passionate declarations of love, as young people often do.
If we are already under an obligation, so that kindness is to be returned by us rather than begun by us, our responsibility is all the greater. No duty is more essential than returning kindness received. If Hesiod tells us to return what we have borrowed for use in greater measure, if we can, what should we do when unsolicited kindness calls on us to respond? Should we not imitate fertile fields, which produce much more than they received? If we do not hesitate to favor those whom we hope will serve us, how should we treat those who have already served us?
There are two kinds of generosity: giving help and returning it. Whether we give is our choice. But a good person cannot fail to return kindness if he can do so without wronging anyone.
