The love of enemies is not
based on the ground of their being hostile and annoying us. It would
be highly unnatural to love them on that score. Nor are we in duty
bound to show to one who hates us special offices of friendship,
except we find him in extreme need, _e.g._, dying in a ditch, as the
Good Samaritan found the Jew: otherwise it is enough that we be
animated towards him with that common charity, which we bear to other
men who are not further off from us than he is. If Lucius offend
Titius, there being no other tie between them than the tie of
friendship, Titius may, where the offence is very outrageous,
henceforth treat Lucius as a stranger. The question of scandal has
sometimes to be regarded, but that is an extrinsic circumstance to our
present subject. Nor are we concerned to say what is the better thing
for Titius to do, but to say all that he is bound to do. He is bound
to render himself as void of wilful malice, and as full of ordinary
courtesy and good feeling towards Lucius, as he is in the case of
Sempronius, a man whom he never heard of till this day. But if there
be some other antecedent tie between them besides the tie of
friendship,--for instance, if Titius and Lucius are two monks of the
same convent, two officers in the same regiment, two partners of one
firm,--Titius is no longer justified in treating Lucius as a stranger.
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