stupendous work, even though it did not cover you, protect you,
cherish you, bring you into existence and penetrate you with its
spirit? Though these heavenly bodies are of the very first
importance to us, and are, indeed, essential to our life, yet we
can think of nothing but their glorious majesty, and similarly all
virtue, especially that of gratitude, though it confers great
advantages upon us, does not wish to be loved for that reason; it
has something more in it than this, and he who merely reckons it
among useful things does not perfectly comprehend it. A man, you
say, is grateful because it is to his advantage to be so. If this
be the case, then his advantage will be the measure of his
gratitude. Virtue will not admit a covetous lover; men must
approach her with open purse. The ungrateful man thinks, "I did
wish to be grateful, but I fear the expense and danger and insults
to which I should expose myself: I will rather consult my own
interest." Men cannot be rendered grateful and ungrateful by the
same line of reasoning: their actions are as distinct as their
purposes. The one is ungrateful, although it is wrong, because it
is his interest; the other is grateful, although it is not his
interest, because it is right.

XXV. It is our aim to live in harmony with the scheme of the
universe, and to follow the example of the gods. Yet in all their
acts the gods have no object in view other than the act itself,
unless you suppose that they obtain a reward for their work in the
smoke of burnt sacrifices and the scent of incense. See what great
things they do every day, how much they divide amongst us, with how
great crops they fill the earth, how they move the seas with
convenient winds to carry us to all shores, how by the fall of
sudden showers they soften the ground, renew the dried-up springs