Elements of Morals Part 14

"Utility, interest, have nothing fixed; they vary from one moment to another. The motive which originated the friendship disappearing, the friendship disappears as rapidly with it.

"The perfect friendship is that of virtuous people, and who resemble each other in their virtue; for these wish each other well, inasmuch as they are good; and I add that they are good in themselves. Those who wish their friends well from such a n.o.ble motive are the friends _par excellence_. Hence it is that the friendship of such generous hearts lasts as long as they remain good and virtuous themselves; now virtue is a substantial and durable thing. Each of the two friends is in the first place good in himself, and he is, moreover, good to all his friends, for good people are useful to each other, and also mutually agreeable to each other. Such a friendship unites, then, all the conditions. There is nothing more lovely. It is quite natural, however, that such friendships are very rare, because there are very few people of such a disposition. It requires, moreover, time and habit. The proverb is true which says that people can hardly know each other well, 'before having eaten together bushels of salt.' In the same way persons cannot be friends before having shown themselves worthy of affection, before reciprocal confidence is established."

(Nicomachean Ethics, liv. viii., ch. vii.)

Friendship, according to Aristotle, consists in _loving_ rather than in _being loved_.

"Friendship, besides, consists much rather in loving than in being loved. The proof of it is the pleasure mothers experience in lavishing their love.... To love is, then, the great virtue of friends; it is thus that the most unequal of people may be friends; their mutual esteem renders them equals." (Ch. viii.)

Friendship gives rise to a number of delicate problems: they may be found discussed in great detail in Cicero's _Treatise on Friendship_.

=65. Kant's precepts touching friendship.=--Among the moderns, Kant is the only moral philosopher who has given friendship a place in practical morality. He has found new and delicate traits to add to the rules of the ancients. He insists above all on what he calls "the difficulties of friendship," and above all on the difficulty of conciliating "love and respect."

"To look at the moral aspect of the thing," he says, "it is certainly a duty to call a friend's attention to the mistakes he may commit; for it is done for his good, and is consequently a duty of love. But the friend, thus admonished, sees in the thing but a lack of esteem he had not expected, and thinks he has lost something in your mind; or, seeing himself thus observed and criticised, may at least be in constant fear of losing your esteem. Besides, the fact alone of being observed and censured, will already appear to him an offensive thing in itself.

"How much in adversity do we not wish for a friend, especially an effective friend, one finding in his own resources abundant means for helping us? Yet is it a very heavy burden to feel one's self responsible for the fortunes of another, and called to provide for his necessities.... Then if the one receives a kindness from the other, perhaps there may be yet reason to hope for perfect equality in love; but he could no longer expect perfect equality in respect; for being under obligation to one he cannot oblige in his turn, he feels himself manifestly one degree his inferior.... Friendship is something so tender that if one does not subject this reciprocal abandonment and interchange of thoughts to principles, to fixed rules, which prevent too great a familiarity and limit reciprocal love by the requirements of respect, it will see itself every instant threatened by some interruption.... In any case affection in friendship should not be a pa.s.sion; for pa.s.sion is blind in its choice, and evaporates with time.[50]

=66. Duties of benevolence.--Duties minima.=--From _kindness_ we pa.s.s to _benevolence_. The one resides in sentiment, the other in acts: the first consists in _wishing_ well, the second in _doing_ good.

The least degree of _benevolence_ consists in rendering to others those smaller services which cost us nothing, and which are helpful to them. It is what Puffendorf calls the _duties minima_ of benevolence.[51]

Cicero, in his _Treatise on duties_ (I., xvi.), gives several examples of this kind:

"To show the way to him who asks for it; to forbid no one the use of running water; to give fire to him who has need of it; to give advice in good faith to him who is in doubt."

Plutarch, in the same sense, says that the Romans never extinguished their lamps after their meals, and always left something on the table to accustom the servants of the house to the duties of humanity. By the law of Moses, the owner of a field was obliged always to leave some corner uncut and not glean the ears that had escaped the reapers. Finally, a Greek poet, Phocylides, expressed in the following lines this minimum of benevolence which every one can exercise:

"Give shelter to those who have none; lead the blind; be merciful to those who have suffered shipwreck; extend a helping hand to the fallen; a.s.sist those that have no one to help them out of danger."

Among these primitive duties, which cost him that fulfills them but little, the ancients put in the first rank _hospitality_. It is in fact a virtue of primitive times which exists especially among barbarous and savage peoples. In the poems of Homer we see to what degree the guest was held sacred; it is still so among the Arabs and the Indians of America.

This virtue, on the contrary, seems to have disappeared with civilization.

The reason of it is that among barbarous populations, where security is feeble, it was the point of honor which guaranteed the security of strangers. But as civilization becomes more complicated, as traveling increases, and security becomes greater, mercenary hospitality takes the place of free and private hospitality. Nevertheless, there can always remain some occasion for this primitive virtue in places isolated and separated from the great centres: this, for example, can still be seen in our days in the great wastes of America and Australia.

=67. Benefactions--Duties of the benefactor.=--The foregoing actions, however praiseworthy they may be, are too simple and too easy to be presented as real acts of benevolence. This term is reserved for the more difficult actions, which may cost us some real sacrifices more or less great, and which, moreover, are important services. These are what are called benefactions.

Seneca, in his _Treatise on benefactions_, has fixed the principles of benevolence:

1. Benefaction consists especially in the feeling which accompanies it, rather than in the thing given.

"What is a benefaction?" he asks; "it is an act of benevolence which procures joy to him who is the object of it and to him who exercises it: it is a voluntary and spontaneous act. It is then not at the thing done and given that we must look, but at the intention, because the benefaction does not consist in the gift or in the action, but in the disposition of him who gives. The proof of this difference is that the benefaction is always a good, whilst the thing done or given is neither a good nor an evil. The benefaction is then not the money that is counted out to you, the present that is made you; no more than the worship of the G.o.ds consists in its fattest victims, but in the uprightness and piety of their worshipers.

"One prefers a hand that opens easily to one that gives largely. He has done little for me, but he could not do any more. That other has given much, but he hesitated, he delayed, he groaned in giving, he gave with ostentation; he proclaimed his good deed; he did not care to please him whom he obliged: it is not to me he gave, it is to his vanity." (I., vi.)

2. One should do good without caring about ingrates.

"What is after all the wrong the ingrate does you? You have lost your good deed. But there remains to you the most precious part of it: the merit of having done it. There are services one should learn how to render without hope of returns, to people one may presume will be ungrateful, and whom one even knows to have been so. If, for example, I can save from a great peril the children of one who has been ungrateful to me, I shall not hesitate to do so." (I., x.)

3. There must be degrees in benefactions, and, having to choose, one must first give the _necessary_, then the _useful_, then the _agreeable_.

"The necessary," says Seneca, "is divided into three cla.s.ses: the first comprises the things without which one cannot live (for example, to rescue a man from the sword of the enemy, from the rage of tyrants, from proscription, etc.); the second, those without which one should not live (such as liberty, honor, virtue); finally (3d cla.s.s), our children, our wives, our household G.o.ds are objects dearer to us than life.--After the necessary comes the useful; it may be subdivided into a great number of species; it comprises money, honors, and above all the progress in the science of virtue.--Finally come the agreeable things which are innumerable.... Let us seek things which please because they are to the purpose; that are not common; that recall the donor; let us above all beware of useless presents." (I., xi.)

4. The manner of granting a benefit is more important than the benefit itself.

"The simplest rule to follow is to give as we should ourselves wish to be given to.

"One must above all give heartily, without hesitation ... after a refusal nothing so hard as irresolution.... The most agreeable kindnesses are those one does not expect, which flow naturally; which antic.i.p.ate their need. It is better to antic.i.p.ate the request. To forestall this trouble is doubling the good deed.

"There are people who spoil their greatest kindnesses by their silence, their slowness to speak which comes from constraint and moodiness; they promise with the same air with which they would refuse.... Their knit brows, their harangues, their disdain make one regret having obtained the promised thing.

"Nothing more disagreeable than to be a long time in suspense. There are persons who prefer giving up hope to languishing in expectation.... Promptness then enhances the good deed, and tardiness diminishes it." (II., ii-vi.)

5. One must not reproach good deeds.

"One of the first and most indispensable laws, is not to reproach or even recall to the mind of recipients one's kindnesses. The tacit agreement between the giver and the receiver is, that the one should immediately forget what he has given, and that the other should never forget what he has received. The frequent mention of kindnesses is a crushing weight to the soul."

6. Benevolence consists sometimes in refusing.

"If the thing asked for is prejudicial to him who asks for it, then benevolence consists no longer in giving, but in refusing. We should have more regard to the interests of the pet.i.tioner than to his wishes. As we refuse patients cold water, arms to angry persons, so should we also refuse a kindness to the most pressing requests, if that kindness is injurious to the interested person.... One should no less consider the end than the principle of kindnesses."

7. Benevolence must be disinterested.

"It is shameful to do good for any other motive than doing good. If one gave only in the hope of rest.i.tution, one would choose the richest in preference to the most worthy.... The least benevolent men would be those who had the best means for being benevolent: the rich, the great, the king, etc. ... As an insult is a thing one should for itself avoid, so benevolence is desirable for its own sake (xv.)....

There is no benevolence where there is expectation of profit. I shall give so much; I shall receive so much: this is called a bargain."

(xiv.)

We will put aside the other questions, more curious than useful, raised by Seneca (as, for example, whether one should give to the wicked; whether one may be his own benefactor; whether one may allow himself to be outdone by good deeds, etc.), and consider now the duties of the one under obligation.

=68. Duties of the person under obligation.=--_Grat.i.tude._--After having expounded the duties of the benefactor, we have to ask ourselves what are those of the person under obligation. The principle of all is _grat.i.tude_; that only comes after the kindness; but there are duties which precede the good deed or accompany it. We shall again cite here Seneca as authority.

After having set forth the principles which should actuate the giver, he also sets forth those the receiver should be guided by.

1. The first principle is that we should not be too greedy and receive from any one, but only from those to whom we should like to give ourselves:

"It is a painful thing to be under obligations to people against one's will. Nothing sweeter, on the contrary, than to receive a kindness from a person one loves.... I must then choose the person of whom I consent to receive anything, and I should even be more particular in regard to kindness-creditors than to money-creditors; to the latter one need only return what he has received from them; this reimburs.e.m.e.nt done we have acquitted ourselves toward them; in the matter of kindnesses, on the contrary, one should pay more than what he has received."

2. A second rule is that from the moment one accepts a kindness, he must accept it cheerfully.

"When we have concluded to accept a kindness, let us do it cheerfully.... To accept a kindness with pleasure, is making the first payment of the interest (II., xxii.).--There are people who only consent to receive in secret; they wish neither witnesses to, nor confidants of, the obligations they are contracting. If the benefactor is bound to proclaim his kindness only inasmuch as its publicity will give pleasure to the person he obliges, the one receiving should, on the contrary, call together the crowd. One is at liberty not to accept what he blushes to receive (x.x.xiii.).... One of the lesser paradoxes of the stoics is, that in receiving a kindness cheerfully, one has already acquitted himself."

3. One must awaken the remembrance of a good deed: _to remember is already to acquit one's self_ (xxiv.).

"Which, according to you, is the most culpable, he who feels no grat.i.tude for a kindness, or he who does not even keep it in mind?...

It would seem that one thought very little about rest.i.tution when he has got so far as to forget the kindness.... To acquit one's self of a kindness, one needs means, some fortune; but the recollection of it is a grat.i.tude which costs nothing. To withhold a payment which requires neither trouble nor riches, is inexcusable.... The objects memory is busy with never escape it; it only loses those it does not often revert to."

=69. Kant's rules touching benevolence and grat.i.tude.=--To the maxims of the ancients which we have just summed up, let us add a few principles borrowed of a modern moralist, the philosopher Kant:

_Benevolence._--Benevolence, when one is rich, and finds in his superfluity the means of making others happy, should never be considered by the benefactor even a meritorious duty. The satisfaction he procures to himself thereby, and which does not cost him any sacrifice, is a means of filling himself with moral sentiments.

Therefore must he carefully avoid looking as if he thought he was obliging others; for otherwise his kindness would no longer be one; since he would seem wishing to put under obligation the person to whom he grants it. He should, on the contrary, show himself under obligation, or as honored by the acceptance of his kindness, and consequently fulfill this duty as he would pay a debt he had contracted; or, what is still better, practice benevolence wholly in secret. This virtue is still greater when the means for being benevolent are restricted: it is then he deserves to be considered as _very rich_ morally. (Kant, _Doctrine de la Vertu_, trad. Fr., p.

128.)