for you behind your back; to gain which you have so often violated
all the ties of relationship, of friendship, and of colleagueship,
till the whole world lies crushed between the two combatants: all
these are not yours; they are a kind of deposit, which is on the
point of passing into other hands: your enemies, or your heirs, who
are little better, will seize upon them. "How," do you ask, "can
you make them your own?" "By giving them away." Do, then, what is
best for your own interests, and gain a sure enjoyment of them,
which cannot be taken from you, making them at once more certainly
yours, and more honorable to you. That which you esteem so highly,
that by which you think that you are made rich and powerful, owns
but the shabby title of "house," "slave," or "money;" but when you
have given it away, it becomes a benefit.

IV. "You admit," says our adversary, "that we sometimes are under
no obligation to him from whom we have received a benefit. In that
case it has been taken by force." Nay, there are many things which
would cause us to cease to feel gratitude for a benefit, not
because the benefit has been taken from me, but because it has been
spoiled. Suppose that a man has defended me in a lawsuit, but has
forcibly outraged my wife; he has not taken away the benefit which
he conferred upon me, but by balancing it with an equivalent wrong,
he has set me free from my debt; indeed, if he has injured me more
than he had previously benefited me, he not only puts an end to my
gratitude, but makes me free to revenge myself upon him, and to
complain of him, when the wrong outweighs the benefit; in such a
case the benefit is not taken away, but is overcome. Why, are not
some fathers so cruel and so wicked that it is right and proper for
their sons to turn away from them, and disown them? Yet, pray, have
they taken away the life which they gave? No, but their unnatural