Section IV: On Gratitude, Vindication, and the Vices Opposed to Them

TO RECOGNIZE prosperity, as also to repel adversity, is innate even to inanimate and unarmed things; thus the earth, in which a yet tender sapling thrives, cherishes it when grown larger with its leaves, and enriches it with its seeds: So the dug-up Hellebore, as if sensing the iron, emits a breath, which, by weighing down the digger's head, avenges the injury done to it; but what in these is natural, in man is moral, and free, whence it obtains the character of virtue, if done in a due manner; if not, it degenerates into the opposite vice.