receiver," that is, that it be suitable to him, and that it be useful;
and therein it is called ready liberality in him who thus
discriminates in giving.

But forasmuch as moral discourses usually create a desire to see their
origin, in this chapter I intend briefly to demonstrate four reasons
why of necessity the gift (in order that it be ready liberality)
should be useful to him who receives. Firstly, because virtue must be
cheerful and not sad in every action: hence, if the gift be not
cheerful in the giving and in the receiving, in it there is not
perfect nor ready virtue. And this joy can spring only from the
utility, which resides in the giver through the giving, and which
comes to the receiver through the receiving. In the giver, then, there
must be the foresight, in doing this, that on his part there shall
remain the benefit of an inherent virtue which is above all other
advantages; and that to the receiver come the benefit of the use of
the thing given. Thus the one and the other will be cheerful, and
consequently it will be a ready liberality, that is, a liberality both
prompt and well considered.

Secondly, because virtue ought always to move things forwards and
upwards. For even as it would be a blameable action to make a spade of
a beautiful sword, or to make a fair basin of a lovely lute; so it is
wrong to move anything from a place where it may be useful, and to
carry it into a place where it may be less useful. And since it is
blameable to work in vain, it is wrong not merely to put the thing in
a place where it may be less useful, but even in a place where it may
be equally useful. Hence, in order that the changing of the place of a
thing may be laudable, it must always be for the better, because it
ought to be especially praiseworthy; and this the gift cannot be, if