On Benefits Chapter 15

" Isto modo," inquit, " nec medico quicquam debere te nisi mercedulam dicis nec praeceptori, quia aliquid numeraveris. Atqui omnium horum apud nos magna caritas, magna reverentia est." Adversus hoc respondetur quaedam pluris esse, quam emuntur. Emis a medico rem inaestimabilem, vitam ac bonam valetudinem, a bonarum artium praeceptore studia liberalia et animi cultum ; itaque his non rei pretium, sed operae solvitur, quod deserviunt, quod a rebus suis avocati nobis vacant ; mercedem non meriti, sed occupationis suae ferunt. Aliud tamen dici potest verius, quod statim ponam, si prius, quomodo istud refelli possit, ostendero. " Quaedam," inquit," pluris sunt, quam venierunt, et ob hoc aliquid mihi extra pro illis quamvis empta sunt, debes." Primum quid interest, quanti sint, cum de pretio inter ementem vendentemque convenerit ? Deinde non emi illud suo pretio, sed tuo. " Pluris est," inquis, " quam venit" ; sed pluris venire non potuit. Pretium autem rei cuiusque pro tempore est ; eum bene ista laudaveris, tanti sunt, quanto pluris venire non possunt ; propterea nihil venditori debet, qui bene emit. Deinde, etiam si pluris ista sunt, non tamen ullum istic tuum munus est, ut non ex usu effectuve, sed ex consuetudine et annona aestimetur. Quod tu pretium ponis traicienti maria et per medios fluctus, cum terra e conspectu recessit, certam secanti viam et prospiciens futuras tempestates et securis omnibus subito iubenti vela substringi, armamenta demitti, paratos ad incursum procellae et repentinum impetum stare ? Huic tamen tantae rei praemium vectura persolvit ! Quanti aestimas in solitudine hospitium, in imbre tectum, in frigore balneum aut ignem ? Scio tamen, quanti ista consecuturus deversorium subeam! Quantum nobis praestat, qui labentem domum suscipit et agentem ex imo rimas insulam incredibili arte suspendit ! Certo tamen et levi pretio fultura conducitur. Murus nos ab hostibus tutos et a subitis latronum incursionibus praestat ; notum est tamen, illas turres pro securitate publica propugnacula habituras excitaturus faber quid in diem mereat.

"According to this reasoning," says my opponent, "you would say that you owe nothing to a physician beyond his paltry fee, nor to your teacher, because you have paid him some money; yet these persons are all held very dear, and are very much respected." In answer to this I should urge that some things are of greater value than the price which we pay for them. You buy of a physician life and good health, the value of which cannot be estimated in money; from a teacher of the liberal sciences you buy the education of a gentleman and mental culture; therefore you pay these persons the price, not of what they give us, but of their trouble in giving it; you pay them for devoting their attention to us, for disregarding their own affairs to attend to us: they receive the price, not of their services, but of the expenditure of their time. Yet this may be more truly stated in another way, which I will at once lay before you, having first pointed out how the above may be confuted. Our adversary would say, "If some things are of greater value than the price which we pay for them, then, though you may have bought them, you still owe me something more for them." I answer, in the first place, what does their real value matter, since the buyer and seller have settled the price between them? Next, I did not buy it at it's own price, but at yours. "It is," you say, "worth more than its sale price." True, but it cannot be sold for more. The price of everything varies according to circumstances; after you have well praised your wares, they are worth only the highest price at which you can sell them; a man who buys things cheap is not on that account under any obligation to the seller. In the next place, even if they are worth more, there is no generosity in your letting them go for less, since the price is settled by custom and the rate of the market, not by the uses and powers of the merchandise. What would you state to be the proper payment of a man who crosses the seas, holding a true course through the midst of the waves after the land has sunk out of sight, who foresees coming storms, and suddenly, when no one expects danger, orders sails to be furled, yards to be lowered, and the crew to stand at their posts ready to meet the fury of the unexpected gale? and yet the price of such great skill is fully paid for by the passage money. At what sum can you estimate the value of a lodging in a wilderness, of a shelter in the rain, of a bath or fire in cold weather? Yet I know on what terms I shall be supplied with these when I enter an inn. How much the man does for us who props our house when it is about to fall, and who, with a skill beyond belief, suspends in the air a block of building which has begun to crack at the foundation; yet we can contract for underpinning at a fixed and cheap rate. The city wall keeps us safe from our enemies, and from sudden inroads of brigands; yet it is, well known how much a day a smith would earn for erecting towers and scaffoldings [Footnote: See Viollet-le-Duc's "Dictionnaire d'Architecture," articles "Architecture Militaire" and "Hourds," for the probable meaning of "Propugnacula."]to provide for the public safety.

« À ce compte-là, me dira-t-on, vous ne devez rien à votre médecin que ses modiques honoraires, rien à votre précepteur dès que vous lui aurez compté quelque argent. Pourtant ces deux classes d’hommes sont chez nous grandement aimées, grandement considérées. » On répond à ceci qu’il est des choses qui valent plus qu’on ne les achète. Vous achetez du médecin une chose inestimable, la vie et la santé ; du précepteur d’arts libéraux, les connaissances qui ennoblissent et la culture de l’âme. Aussi n’est-ce pas ici la chose que l’on paye, mais la peine, mais leur ministère, les heures qu’ils dérobent à leurs affaires pour nous les consacrer. C’est le salaire, non du service, mais du temps employé. On peut encore faire une autre réponse plus vraie et qui va suivre ; mais indiquons d’abord comment peut se réfuter cette objection : « Il est des choses qui valent plus qu’elles ne se vendent, et pour lesquelles on doit au delà de ce qu’on les a payées. » D’abord qu’importe ce qu’elles valent, dès que le prix a été convenu entre l’acheteur et le vendeur ? Ensuite je l’ai achetée non à son prix, mais au vôtre. » Elle vaut davantage ! » Mais elle n’a pu se vendre plus. Le prix des choses dépend des circonstances. Vantez-les tant que vous voudrez, leur taux est celui au delà duquel elles ne se vendent plus ; et en outre, n’est point redevable au vendeur, celui qui achète à bon compte. Du reste, elles ont beau valoir davantage, il n’y a là de votre part nulle générosité, puisqu’on ne les prise pas d’après le service et l’effet obtenu, mais d’après l’usage et le taux du marché. Quel prix mettez-vous à l’art du pilote qui franchit les mers, qui, au travers des flots, quand la terre a fui loin de ses regards, vous trace une route certaine, prévoit les tempêtes, et au milieu de la sécurité générale ordonne tout à coup de carguer les voiles, de baisser les agrès, de se tenir prêt au choc de l’orage et de faire tête à sa brusque violence ? Toutefois un si grand service est acquitté par le prix du passage. À combien évaluez-vous l’hospitalité dans un désert, un abri pendant la pluie, un bain ou du feu par un temps froid ? Cependant je sais le peu que tout cela me coûte dans l’auberge où je descends. Quel service ne me rend pas l’homme qui étaye ma maison prête à s’écrouler, l’homme dont l’art incroyable retient comme suspendu tout un édifice qui se crevasse depuis ses fondements ? Et pourtant c’est à un prix fixe et modique que tout ce travail est taxé. Un rempart nous défend contre l’ennemi, contre les subites incursions des brigands ; cependant ces tours, boulevards futurs de la sécurité publique, on sait ce que gagne par jour le maçon qui les bâtit.