house, by being brought up upon their recognizances to a court of
law by their enemies; some have been saved by ship-wreck from
falling into the hands of pirates; yet we do not feel grateful to
such things, because chance has no feeling of the service it
renders, nor are we grateful to our enemy, though his lawsuit,
while it harassed and detained us, still saved our lives. Nothing
can be a benefit which does not proceed from good will, and which
is not meant as such by the giver. If any one does me a service,
without knowing it, I am under no obligation to him; should he do
so, meaning to injure me, I shall imitate his conduct.

X. Let us turn our attention to the first of these. Can you desire
me to do anything to express my gratitude to a man who did nothing
in order to confer a benefit upon me? Passing on to the next, do
you wish me to show my gratitude to such a man, and of my own will
to return to him what I received from him against his will? What am
I to say of the third, he who, meaning to do an injury, blunders
into bestowing a benefit? That you should have wished to confer a
benefit upon me is not sufficient to render me grateful; but that
you should have wished not to do so is enough to set me free from
any obligation to you. A mere wish does not constitute a benefit;
and just as the best and heartiest wish is not a benefit when
fortune prevents its being carried into effect, neither is what
fortune bestows upon us a benefit, unless good wishes preceded it.
In order to lay me under an obligation, you must not merely do me a
service, but you must do so intentionally.

XI. Cleanthes makes use of the following example:--"I sent," says
he, "two slaves to look for Plato and bring him to me from the
Academy. One of them searched through the whole of the colonnade,