“What, then,” he replies, “if I had committed your names to a choice by lot, and your name had appeared among those to be ransomed, would you owe nothing to me?” Yes, I should owe something, but very little; just how much, I will tell you. In that case you do something for my sake, in that you admit me to the chance of being ransomed. I owe it to Fortune that my name was drawn; I owe it to you that my name could be drawn. You gave me the opportunity to share in your benefit, for the greater part of which I am indebted to Fortune; but I am indebted to you for the fact that I was able to become indebted to Fortune.
I shall wholly omit notice of those who make benefaction mercenary, for he who gives in this spirit takes count of, not to whom, but on what terms, he will give a benefit that is wholly directed to his own interest. Someone sells me grain; I cannot live unless I buy it; yet I do not owe my life to him because I bought it. And I consider, not how necessary the thing was without which I could not have lived, but how little gratitude I owe for something that I should not have had unless I had bought it, in the transportation of which the trader thought, not of how much help he would bring to me, but of how much gain he would bring to himself. What I have paid for entails no obligation.