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 comes once to be authorized. Nay, Cleanthes carries it farther; he that is wanting, says he, to a kind office, though it be no benefit, would have done the same thing if it had been one; and is as guilty as a thief is, that has set his booty, and is already armed and mounted with a purpose to seize it, though he has not yet drawn blood. Wickedness is formed in the heart; and the matter of fact is only the discovery and the execution of it. Now, though a wicked man cannot either receive or bestow a benefit, because he wants the will of doing good, and for that he is no longer wicked, when virtue has taken possession of him; yet we commonly call it one, as we call a man illiterate that is not learned, and naked that is not well clad; not but that the one can read, and the other is covered.
CHAPTER XV.
A GENERAL VIEW OF THE PARTS AND DUTIES OF THE BENEFACTOR.
The three main points in the question of benefits are, first, a judicious choice in the object; secondly, in the matter of our benevolence; and thirdly, a grateful felicity in the manner of expressing it. But there are also incumbent upon the benefactor other considerations, which will deserve a place in this discourse.
It is not enough to do one good turn, and to do it with a good grace too, unless we follow it with more, and without either upbraiding or repining. It is a common shift, to charge that upon the ingratitude of the receiver, which, in truth, is most commonly the levity and indiscretion of the giver; for all circumstances must be duly weighed to consummate the action. Some there are that we find ungrateful; but what with our forwardness, change of humor and reproaches, there are more that we make so. And this is the business: we give with design, and most to those that are able to give most again. We give to the covetous, and to the ambitious; to those that can never be thankful, (for their desires are insatiable,) and to those that will not. He that is a tribune would be prætor; the prætor, a consul; never reflecting upon what he was, but only looking forward to what he would be. People are still computing, Must I lose this or that benefit? If it be lost, the fault lies in the ill bestowing of it; for rightly placed, it is as good as consecrated; if we be deceived in another, let us not be deceived in ourselves too. A charitable man will mend the matter: and say to himself, Perhaps he has forgot it, perchance he could not, perhaps he will yet requite it. A patient creditor will, of an ill paymaster, in time make a good one; an obstinate goodness overcomes an ill disposition, as a barren soil is made fruitful by care and tillage. But let a man be never so ungrateful or inhuman, he shall never destroy the satisfaction of my having done a good office.
But what if others will be wicked? does it follow that we must be so too? If others will be ungrateful, must we therefore be inhuman? To give and to lose, is nothing; but to lose and to give still, is the part of a great mind. And the others in effect is the greater loss; for the one does but lose his benefit, and the other loses himself. The light shines upon the profane and sacrilegious as well as upon the righteous. How many disappointments do we meet with in our wives and children, and yet we couple still? He that has lost one battle hazards another. The mariner puts to sea again after a wreck. An illustrious mind does not propose the profit of a good office, but the duty. If the world be wicked, we should yet persevere in well-doing, even among evil men. I had rather never receive a kindness than never bestow one: not to return a benefit is the greater sin, but not to confer it is the earlier. We cannot propose to ourselves a more glorious example than that of the Almighty, who neither needs nor expects anything from us; and yet he is continually showering down and distributing his mercies and his grace among us, not only for our necessities, but also for our delights; as fruits and seasons, rain and sunshine, veins of water and of metal; and all this to the wicked as well as to the good, and without any other end than the common benefit of the receivers. With what face then can we be mercenary one to another, that have received all things from Divine Providence gratis? It is a common saying, “I gave such or such a man so much money: I would I had thrown it into the sea;” and yet the merchant trades again after a piracy, and the banker ventures afresh after a bad security. He that will do no good offices after a disappointment, must stand still, and do just nothing at all. The plow goes on after a barren year: and while the ashes are yet warm, we raise a new house upon the ruins of a former. What obligations can be greater than those which children receive from their parents? and yet should we give them over in their infancy, it were all to no purpose. Benefits, like grain, must be followed from the seed to the harvest. I will not so much as leave any place for ingratitude. I will pursue, and I will encompass the receiver with benefits; so that let him look which way he will, his benefactor shall be still in his eye, even when he would avoid his own memory: and then I will remit to one man because he calls for it; to another, because he does not; to a third, because he is wicked; and to a fourth, because he is the contrary. I will cast away a good turn upon a bad man, and I will requite a good one; the one because it is my duty, and the other that I may not be in debt.
I do not love to hear
