The moral type is not on
fixed terms; it makes a gift, or does whatever it does, as to a
friend; but one expects to receive as much or more, as having not
given but lent; and if a man is worse off when the relation is
dissolved than he was when it was contracted he will complain. This
happens because all or most men, while they wish for what is noble,
choose what is advantageous; now it is noble to do well by another
without a view to repayment, but it is the receiving of benefits
that is advantageous. Therefore if we can we should return the
equivalent of what we have received (for we must not make a man our
friend against his will; we must recognize that we were mistaken at
the first and took a benefit from a person we should not have taken it
from-since it was not from a friend, nor from one who did it just
for the sake of acting so-and we must settle up just as if we had been
benefited on fixed terms). Indeed, one would agree to repay if one
could (if one could not, even the giver would not have expected one to
do so); therefore if it is possible we must repay. But at the outset
we must consider the man by whom we are being benefited and on what
terms he is acting, in order that we may accept the benefit on these
terms, or else decline it.
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