Therefore if the
facts really are so, the demand is not fair; and if they are not,
but people think they are, they would be held to be doing nothing
strange in refusing. As we have often pointed out, then, discussions
about feelings and actions have just as much definiteness as their
subject-matter.
That we should not make the same return to every one, nor give a
father the preference in everything, as one does not sacrifice
everything to Zeus, is plain enough; but since we ought to render
different things to parents, brothers, comrades, and benefactors, we
ought to render to each class what is appropriate and becoming. And
this is what people seem in fact to do; to marriages they invite their
kinsfolk; for these have a part in the family and therefore in the
doings that affect the family; and at funerals also they think that
kinsfolk, before all others, should meet, for the same reason. And
it would be thought that in the matter of food we should help our
parents before all others, since we owe our own nourishment to them,
and it is more honourable to help in this respect the authors of our
being even before ourselves; and honour too one should give to one's
parents as one does to the gods, but not any and every honour; for
that matter one should not give the same honour to one's father and
one's mother, nor again should one give them the honour due to a
philosopher or to a general, but the honour due to a father, or
again to a mother.
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