Seneca's Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and ClemencySeneca, Lucius Annaeus
Philosophy
Seneca's Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency
Seneca, Lucius Annaeus
Conduct of life; Ethics
If it should be my fortune to receive a benefit from one that
afterwards betrays his country, I should still reckon myself obliged
to him for such a requital as might stand with my public duty; I
would not furnish him with arms, nor with money or credit, or levy
or pay soldiers; but I should not stick to gratify him at my own
expense with such curiosities as might please him one way without
doing mischief another. I would not do any thing that might contribute
to the support or advantage of his party. But what should I do now
in the case of a benefactor, that should afterwards become not only
mine and my country’s enemy, but the common enemy of mankind! I would
here distinguish betwixt the wickedness of a man and the cruelty of a
beast—betwixt a limited or a particular passion and a sanguinary rage
that extends to the hazard and destruction of human society. In the
former case I would quit scores, that I might have no more to do with
him; but if he comes once to delight in blood, and to act outrages
with greediness—to study and invent torments, and to take pleasure in
them—the law of reasonable nature has discharged me of such a debt.
But this is an impiety so rare that it might pass for a portent, and
be reckoned among comets and monsters. Let us therefore restrain our
discourse to such men as we detest without horror; such men as we see
every day in courts, camps, and upon the seats of justice; to such
wicked men I will return what I have received, without making any
advantage of their unrighteousness.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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