Seneca's Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency. Lucius Annaeus Seneca
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If the benefactor’s bounty must extend to the bad as well as the good; put the case, that I promise a good office to an ungrateful man; we are first to distinguish (as I said before) betwixt a common benefit and a personal; betwixt what is given for merit and what for company. Secondly, Whether or not we know the person to be ungrateful, and can reasonably conclude, that this vice is incurable. Thirdly, A consideration must be had of the promise, how far that may oblige us. The two first points are cleared both in one: we cannot justify any particular kindness for one that we conclude to be a hopelessly wicked man: so that the force of the promise is in the single point in question. In the promise of a good office to a wicked or ungrateful man, I am to blame if I did it knowingly; and I am to blame nevertheless, if I did it otherwise: but I must yet make it good, (under due qualifications,) because I promised it; that is to say, matters continuing in the same state, for no man is answerable for accidents. I will sup at such a place though it be cold; I will rise at such an hour though I be sleepy; but if it prove tempestuous, or that I fall sick of a fever, I will neither do the one nor the other. I promise to second a friend in a quarrel, or to plead his cause; and when I come into the field, or into the court, it proves to be against my father or my brother: I promise to go a journey with him, but there is no traveling upon the road for robbing; my child is fallen sick; or my wife is in labor: these circumstances are sufficient to discharge me; for a promise against law or duty is void in its own nature.
The counsels of a wise man are certain, but events are uncertain: and yet if I have passed a rash promise, I will in some degree punish the temerity of making it with the damage of keeping it, unless it turn very much to my shame or detriment, and then I will be my own confessor in the point, and rather be once guilty of denying, than always of giving. It is not with a benefit as with a debt—it is one thing to trust an ill paymaster, and another thing to oblige an unworthy person—the one is an ill man, and the other only an ill husband.
There was a valiant fellow in the army, that Philip of Macedon took particular notice of, and he gave him several considerable marks of the kindness he had for him. This soldier put to sea and was cast away upon a coast where a charitable neighbor took him up half dead, carried him to the house, and there, at his own charge maintained and provided for him thirty days, until he was perfectly recovered, and, after all, furnished him over and above, with a viaticum at parting. The soldier told him the mighty matters that he would do for him in return, so soon as he should have the honor once again to see his master. To court he goes, tells Philip of the wreck, but not a syllable of his preserver, and begs the estate of this very man that kept him alive. It was with Philip as it was with many other princes, they give they know not what, especially in a time of war. He granted the soldier his request, contemplating at the same time, the impossibility of satisfying so many ravenous appetites as he had to please. When the good man came to be turned out of all, he was not so mealy-mouthed as to thank his majesty for not giving away his person too as well as his fortune; but in a bold, frank letter to Philip, made a just report of the whole story. The king was so incensed at the abuse, that he immediately commanded the right owner to be restored to his estate, and the unthankful guest and soldier to be stigmatized for an example to others.
Should Philip now have kept this promise? First, he owed the soldier nothing. Secondly, it would have been injurious and impious; and, lastly, a precedent of dangerous consequence to human society; for it would have been little less than an interdiction of fire and water to the miserable, to have inflicted such a penalty upon relieving them; so that there must be always some tacit exception or reserve: if I can, if I may; or, if matters continue as they were.
If it should be my fortune to receive a benefit from one that afterwards betrays his country, I should still reckon myself obliged to him for such a requital as might stand with my public duty; I would not furnish him with arms, nor with money or credit, or levy or pay soldiers; but I should not stick to gratify him at my own expense with such curiosities as might please him one way without doing mischief another. I would not do any thing that might contribute to the support or advantage of his party. But what should I do now in the case of a benefactor, that should afterwards become not only mine and my country’s enemy, but the common enemy of mankind! I would here distinguish betwixt the wickedness of a man and the cruelty of a beast—betwixt a limited or a particular passion and a sanguinary rage that extends to the hazard and destruction of human society. In the former case I would quit scores, that I might have no more to do with him; but if he comes once to delight in blood, and to act outrages with greediness—to study and invent torments, and to take pleasure in them—the law of reasonable nature has discharged me of such a debt. But this is an impiety so rare that it might pass for a portent, and be reckoned among comets and monsters. Let us therefore restrain our discourse to such men as we detest without horror; such men as we see every day in courts, camps, and upon the seats of justice; to such wicked men I will return what I have received, without making any advantage of their unrighteousness.
It does not divert the Almighty from being still gracious, though we proceed daily in the abuse of his bounties. How many there are that enjoy the comfort of the light that do not deserve it; that wish they had never been born! and yet Nature goes quietly on with her work, and allows them a being, even in despite of their unthankfulness. Such a knave, we cry, was better used than I: and the same complaint we extend to Providence itself. How many wicked men have good crops, when better than themselves have their fruits blasted! Such a man, we say, has treated me very ill. Why, what should we do, but that very thing which is done by God himself? that is to say, give to the ignorant, and persevere to the wicked. All our ingratitude, we see, does not turn Providence from pouring down of benefits, even upon those that question whence they come. The wisdom of Heaven does all things with a regard to the good of the universe, and the blessings of nature are granted in common, to the worst as well as to the best of men; for they live promiscuously together; and it is God’s will, that the wicked shall rather fare the better for the good, than that the good shall fare the worse for the wicked. It is true that a wise prince will confer peculiar honors only upon the worthy; but in the dealing of a public dole, there is no respect had to the manners of the man; but a thief or traitor shall put in for a share as well as an honest man. If a good man and a wicked man sail both in the same bottom, it is impossible that the same wind which favors the one should cross the other. The common benefits of laws, privileges, communities, letters, and medicines, are permitted to the bad as well as to the good; and no man ever yet suppressed a sovereign remedy for fear a wicked man might be cured with it. Cities are built for both sorts, and the same remedy works upon both alike. In these cases, we are to set an estimate upon the persons: there is a great difference betwixt the choosing of a man and the not excluding him: the law is open to the rebellious as well as to the obedient: there are some benefits which, if they were not allowed to all, could not be enjoyed by any. The sun was never made for me, but for the comfort of the world, and for the providential order of the seasons; and yet I am not without my private obligation also. To conclude, he that will oblige the wicked and the ungrateful, must resolve to oblige nobody; for in some sort or another we are all of us wicked, we are all of us ungrateful, every man of us.
We have been discoursing all this while how far a wicked man may be obliged, and the Stoics tell us at last, that he cannot be obliged at all. For they make him incapable of any good, and consequently of any benefit. But he has this advantage, that if he cannot be obliged, he cannot be ungrateful: for if he cannot receive, he is not bound to return. On the other side, a good man and an ungrateful, are a contradiction: so that at this rate there is no such thing as ingratitude in nature. They compare a wicked man’s mind to a vitiated stomach; he corrupts whatever he receives, and the best nourishment turns to the disease. But taking this for granted, a wicked man may yet so far be obliged as to pass for ungrateful, if he does not requite what he receives: for though it be not a perfect benefit, yet he receives something like it. There are goods of the mind, the body, and of fortune. Of the first sort, fools and wicked men are wholly incapable; to the rest they may be admitted. But why should I call any man ungrateful, you will say, for not restoring that which I deny to be a benefit? I answer, that if the receiver take it for a benefit, and fails of a return, it is ingratitude in him: for that which goes for an obligation among wicked men, is an obligation upon them: and they may pay one another in their own coin; the money is current, whether it be gold or leather, when it