I come now to the last part of the subject. He who returns gratitude ought to expend something, just as he who pays a debt expends money; but he who returns gratitude to himself expends nothing, just as surely as he who has received a benefit from himself gains nothing. A benefit and the repayment of gratitude must pass from one to the other; no interchange is possible if only one person is involved. He who returns gratitude does good in his turn to the one from whom he obtained something. But he who returns gratitude to himself — to whom does he do good? Only to himself. And who does not think of the repayment of gratitude as one act, and the bestowal of a benefit as another? He who returns gratitude to himself does good to himself. And what ingrate was ever unwilling to do this? Nay, rather, who was ever an ingrate except that he might do this? “If,” you say, “we ought to render thanks to ourselves, we ought also to return gratitude; yet we say: ‘I am thankful to myself that I refused to marry that woman,” and “that I did not conclude a partnership with that man.’” But when we say this, we are lauding ourselves, and, in order to show approval of our act, we misapply the language of those who render thanks. A benefit is something which, when given, may, or may not, be returned. Now he who gives a benefit to himself cannot help having what he has given returned; therefore this is not a benefit. A benefit is received at one time, is returned at another.8 A benefit, too, possesses this commendable, this most praiseworthy, quality, that a man forgets for the time being his own interest in order that he may give help to another, that he is ready to deprive himself of what he gives to another. But he who gives a benefit to himself does not do this. The giving of a benefit is a social act, it wins the goodwill of someone, it lays someone under obligation; giving to oneself is not a social act, it wins no one’s goodwill, it lays no one under obligation, it raises no man’s hopes, or leads him to say: “I must cultivate this man; he has given a benefit to So-and-so, he will give one to me also.” A benefit is something that a man gives, not for his own sake, but for the sake of the one to whom he is giving. But he who gives a benefit to himself gives for his own sake; this, then, is not a benefit.