heretofore, to the intention of the benefactor, and fix the obligation upon him unto whom the kindness was directed. If a man manures my ground, keeps my house from burning or falling, it is a benefit to me, for I am the better for it, and my house and land are insensible. But if he save the life of my son, the benefit is to my son; it is a joy and a comfort to me, but no obligation. I am as much concerned as I ought to be in the health, the felicity, and the welfare of my son, as happy in the enjoyment of him; and I should be as unhappy as is possible in his loss; but it does not follow that I must of necessity lie under an obligation for being either happier or less miserable, by another body’s means. There are some benefits, which although conferred upon one man, may yet work upon others; as a sum of money may be given to a poor man for his own sake, which in the consequence proves the relief of his whole family; but still the immediate receiver is the debtor for it; for the question is not, to whom it comes afterward to be transferred, but who is the principal? and upon whom it was first bestowed? My son’s life is as dear to me as my own; and in saving him you preserve me too: in this case I will acknowledge myself obliged to you, that is to say, in my son’s name; for in my own, and in strictness, I am not; but I am content to make myself a voluntary debtor. What if he had borrowed money? my paying of it does not at all make it my debt. It would put me to the blush perhaps to have him taken in bed with another man’s wife; but that does not make me an adulterer. It is a wonderful delight and satisfaction that I receive in his safety; but still this good is not a benefit. A man may be the better for an animal, a plant, a stone; but there must be a will, an intention, to make it an obligation. You save the son without so much as knowing the father, nay, without so much as thinking of him; and, perhaps you would have done the same thing even if you had hated him.
But without any further alteration of dialogue, the conclusion is this; if you meant him the kindness, he is answerable for it, and I may enjoy the fruit of it without being obliged by it: but if it was done for my sake, then I am accountable; or howsoever, upon any occasion, I am ready to do you all the kind offices imaginable; not as the return of a benefit, but as the earnest of a friendship; which you are not to challenge neither, but to entertain as an act of honor and of justice, rather than of gratitude. If a man find the body of my dead father in a desert, and give it a burial; if he did it as to my father, I am beholden to him: but if the body was unknown to him, and that he would have done the same thing for any other body, I am no farther concerned in it than as a piece of public humanity.
There are, moreover, some cases wherein an unworthy person may be obliged and for the sake of others: and the sottish extract of an ancient nobilty may be preferred before a better man that is but of yesterday’s standing. And it is but reasonable to pay a reverence even to the memory of eminent virtues. He that is not illustrious in himself, may yet be reputed so in the right of his ancestors: and there is a gratitude to be entailed upon the offspring of famous progenitors. Was it not for the father’s sake that Cicero the son was made counsel? and was it not the eminence of one Pompey that raised and dignified the rest of his family? How came Caligula to be emperor of the world? a man so cruel, that he spilt blood as greedily as if he were to drink it; the empire was not given to himself, but to his father Germanicus. A brave man deserved that for him, which he could never have challenged upon his own merit. What was it that preferred Fabius Persicus, (whose very mouth was the uncleanest part about him,) what was it but the 300 of that family that so generously opposed the enemy for the safety of the commonwealth?
Nay, Providence itself is gracious to the wicked posterity of an honorable race. The counsels of heaven are guided by wisdom, mercy, and justice. Some men are made kings of their proper virtues, without any respect to their predecessors: others for their ancestors’ sakes, whose virtues, though neglected in their lives, come to be afterward rewarded in their issues. And it is but equity, that our gratitude should extend as far as the influence of their heroical actions and examples.
CHAPTER XII.
THE BENEFACTOR MUST HAVE NO BY-ENDS.
We come now to the main point of the matter in question: that is to say, whether or not it be a thing desirable in itself, the giving and receiving of benefits? There is a sect of philosophers that accounts nothing valuable but what is profitable, and so makes all virtue mercenary; an unmanly mistake to imagine, that the hope of gain, or fear of loss, should make a man either the more or less honest. As who should say, “What will I get by it, and I will be an honest man?” Whereas, on the contrary, honesty is a thing in itself to be purchased at any rate. It is not for a body to say, “It will be a charge, a hazard, I shall give offence,” etc. My business is to do what I ought to do: all other considerations are foreign to the office. Whensoever my duty calls me, it is my part to attend, without scrupulizing upon forms or difficulties. Shall I see an honest man oppressed at the bar, and not assist him, for fear of a court faction? or not second him upon the highway against thieves, for fear of a broken head? and choose rather to sit still, the quiet spectator of fraud and violence? Why will men be just, temperate, generous, brave, but because it carries along with it fame and a good conscience? and for the same reason, and no other, (to apply it to the subject in hand,) let a man also be bountiful. The school of Epicurus, I am sure, will never swallow this doctrine: (that effeminate tribe of lazy and voluptuous philosophers;) they will tell you, that virtue is but the servant and vassal of pleasure. “No,” says Epicurus, “I am not for pleasure neither without virtue.” But, why then for pleasure, say I, before virtue? Not that the stress of the controversy lies upon the order only; for the power of it, as well as the dignity, is now under debate. It is the office of virtue to superintend, to lead, and to govern; but the parts you have assigned it, are to submit, to follow, and to be under command. But this, you will say, is nothing to the purpose, so long as both sides are agreed, that there can be no happiness without virtue: “Take away that,” says Epicurus, “and I am as little a friend to pleasure as you.” The pinch, in short, is this, whether virtue itself be the supreme good or the only cause of it? It is not the inverting of the order that will clear this point; (though it is a very preposterous error, to set that first which should be last.) It does not half so much offend me; ranging of pleasure before virtue, as the very comparing of them; and the bringing of the two opposites, and professed enemies, into any sort of competition.
The drift of this discourse is, to support the cause of benefits; and to prove, that it is a mean and dishonorable thing to give for any other end than for giving’s sake. He that gives for gain, profit, or any by-end, destroys the very intent of bounty; for it falls only upon those that do not want, and perverts the charitable inclinations of princes and of great men, who cannot reasonably propound to themselves any such end. What does the sun get by travelling about the universe; by visiting and comforting all the quarters of the earth? Is the whole creation made and ordered for the good of mankind, and every particular man only for the good of himself? There passes not an hour of our lives, wherein we do not enjoy the blessings of Providence, without measure and without intermission. And what design can the Almighty have upon us, who is in himself full, safe, and inviolable? If he should give only for his own sake, what would become of poor mortals, that have nothing to return him at best but dutiful acknowledgments? It is putting out of a benefit to interest only to bestow where we may place it to advantage.
Let us be liberal then, after the example of our great Creator, and give to others with the same consideration that he gives to us. Epicurus’s answer will be to this, that God gives no benefits at all, but turns his back upon the world; and without any concern for us, leaves Nature to take her course: and whether he does anything himself, or nothing, he takes no notice, however, either of the good or of the ill that is done here below. If there were not an ordering and an over-ruling Providence, how comes it (say I, on the other side) that the universality of mankind should ever have so unanimously agreed in the madness of worshipping a power that can neither hear nor help us? Some blessings are freely given us; others upon our prayers are granted us; and every day brings forth instances of great and of seasonable mercies. There never was yet any man so insensible as not to
