though nature had taken sufficient precautions
against it. Just as there is no law which bids parents love and indulge
their children, seeing that it is superfluous to force us into the
path which we naturally take, just as no one needs to be urged to love
himself, since self-love begins to act upon him as soon as he is born,
so there is no law bidding us to seek that which is honourable
in itself; for such things please us by their very nature, and so
attractive is virtue that the disposition even of bad men leads them to
approve of good rather than of evil. Who is there who does not wish
to appear beneficent, who does not even when steeped in crime and
wrong-doing strive after the appearance of goodness, does not put some
show of justice upon even his most intemperate acts, and endeavour to
seem to have conferred a benefit even upon those whom he has injured?
Consequently, men allow themselves to be thanked by those whom they have
ruined, and pretend to be good and generous, because they cannot prove
themselves so; and this they never would do were it not that a love
of honour for its own sake forces them to seek a reputation quite at
variance with their real character, and to conceal their baseness, a
quality whose fruits we covet, though we regard it itself with dislike
and shame. No one has ever so far rebelled against the laws of nature
and put off human feeling as to act basely for mere amusement. Ask any
of those who live by robbery whether he would not rather obtain what
he steals and plunders by honest means; the man whose trade is highway
robbery and the murder of travellers would rather find his booty than
take it by force; you will find no one who would not prefer to enjoy the
fruits of wickedness without acting wickedly. Nature bestows upon us all
this immense advantage, that the light of virtue shines into the minds
of all alike; even those who do not follow her, behold her.

XVIII. A proof that gratitude is desirable for itself lies in the fact
that ingratitude is to be avoided for itself, because no vice more
powerfully rends asunder and destroys the union of the human race.
To what do we trust for safety, if not in mutual good offices one to
another? It is by the interchange of benefits alone that we gain some
measure of protection for our lives, and of safety against sudden
disasters. Taken singly, what should we be? a prey and quarry for wild
beasts, a luscious and easy banquet; for while all other a