Article III. Supplements to the Doctrine

500. The threefold duty of a grateful mind.¹ Although gratitude formally intends some equality of wills, nevertheless it embraces three duties: “The first is that a man acknowledge the benefit received; the second is that he praise and give thanks; the third is that he repay according to place and time, in accordance with his means.” St. Thomas, II–II, q. 107, art. 2, corpus. For the acknowledgment of a benefit is, as it were, the beginning and necessary principle of benevolence itself; praises and opportune repayment are its natural effects.

¹ Lessius, no. 17, speaks more explicitly concerning these duties, which he distributes into five.

But repayment is no longer opportune unless it is made at its proper time. In this matter, one can sin both by delay and by haste itself. For, as Seneca warns, work cited, bk. 4, chap. 11: “He who hastens to repay does not have the mind of a grateful man, but of a debtor.” This is to be reproved: “For he does not seem to esteem that which is principal in a benefit, namely, the gratuitous mind of the benefactor; for he pays just as if the latter had given, not gratuitously, but with a view to compensation.” Lessius, no. 7. Then, while he strives immediately to cast off this obligation, he seems to owe unwillingly, “and he who owes unwillingly is ungrateful.” Seneca, in the same place. On this matter, cf. St. Thomas, q. 106, art. 4.

501. The measure of the duties. a) Concerning the formal measure, we have already spoken. St. Thomas presents it thus: “Just as in justice, which is a cardinal virtue, the equality of things is considered, so in gratitude the equality of wills is considered.” St. Thomas, II–II, q. 106, art. 6, ad 3.

b) But, from the same rationale—that the person obligated strives to repay his benefactor in return with an equal will—St. Thomas declares concerning the material measure that one ought to be so disposed that one is more ready to furnish than one has received. For one who repays to equality seems to discharge a debt. But the will of the beneficent man was this: to do something to which he was held by no obligation. St. Thomas, q. 106, art. 6; Lessius, no. 8.

Modern interpreters of the laws have perceived this very little; for, while they understand a remuneratory donation to be only that by which a service worthy of a wage is repaid to equality, they seem to pervert its rationale, so that it is now nothing but a certain wage concerning which there was no agreement by express compact. Compare what is said by Molina, disp. 292, and by Baudry-Lacantinerie, Précis de droit civil, vol. 2, no. 252.

But if you should object that in this way a process to infinity is introduced, since repayment would thus be a new benefit to be requited by new gratitude, accept that response wholly worthy of the great soul of the Angelic Doctor: “The debt of gratitude is derived from charity, which, the more it is discharged, the more it is owed, according to that saying (Rom. 13): Owe no man anything, except that you love one another. And therefore it is not unfitting if the obligation of gratitude is interminable.” St. Thomas, II–II, q. 106, art. 6, ad 2.

502. The debt is not removed by a concession of the author of the benefit. Although a benefit is governed by this, as it were, higher law, which Seneca elegantly rendered thus, work cited, bk. 2, chap. 10, at the end: “This is the law of a benefit between two persons: the one ought immediately to forget what was given, the other never to forget what was received,” nevertheless the debt of gratitude in some manner binds more strongly than an obligation of strict justice. For the latter is removed by a cession of the right, while no renunciation² suppresses a debt which does not regard a right.

² Nevertheless, understand this when no contrary affection has been assumed. For when the will has changed, or hatred has been conceived, the author of the benefit himself seems, as it were, to rescind the benefit. Cf. Seneca, bk. 3, chap. 13.

The most, therefore, that the author of a benefit can do is to free the person obligated from a certain material prestation which formal gratitude would otherwise command to be made.

503. The debt of gratitude follows the conferral of the benefit, not a merely beneficent intention. Although gratitude is sometimes rendered merely affectively, its debt does not arise except from a benefit actually received. For until someone has actually conferred a benefit, he does not have the character of a principle with respect to another,³ which character is the cause of the obligation. Cf. the proof. Therefore, we said that in the estimation of a benefit the very importance of the gift cannot be disregarded.

³ To this pertains the beautiful inquiry which the Philosopher institutes in bk. 9, chap. 7 of the Ethics, concerning this question: why we are borne with a more vehement affection of love toward those of whom we have deserved well than toward those from whom we have received benefits.

504. Concerning ingratitude. I. In omission, three rationales of it appear, since there is a threefold positive duty of gratitude: not to acknowledge the benefit, not to give thanks, not to repay according to the means afforded.⁴

⁴ Observe that, since that which is last in generation is first in resolution, these degrees of ingratitude are arranged in such an order that the first is not to repay a benefit; the second, to dissemble by not giving thanks; the third, to refuse to acknowledge it. Lessius, no. 17, and St. Thomas, II–II, q. 107, art. 2, corpus.

Three degrees of ingratitude which consist in commission are also enumerated, and indeed in this order: To repay evils for good things, the gravity of which must be estimated from the importance of the matter (St. Thomas, place cited); To disparage the benefit; To reckon the benefit in place of an evil deed. These latter two modes pertain now rather to formal ingratitude. Lessius, place cited.

505. Whether it is lawful to decline a benefit.

Not only after a benefit has been accepted does the rule of moral rectitude demand a grateful mind, but we also seem unable rashly to decline a benefit offered with sincere intention, in order thus to escape the obligation itself. For “the debt of gratitude is derived from the debt of love.... Whence, that someone owes this debt unwillingly seems to proceed from a defect of love toward him who gave” (or offers) “the benefit.” St. Thomas, II–II, q. 107, art. 1, ad 3. How true these things are is confirmed by daily experience. For men often declare that they wish to owe nothing to someone whom they hate. Therefore Lessius, no. 5, places benign acceptance among the duties of gratitude.

506. Concerning gratitude to be rendered to God, parents, and superiors, for the benefits by which we are affected by them, you will more correctly, with St. Thomas, assign it to the very virtues of religion, piety, and observance, as moving us to satisfy every rationale of debt by which we are bound toward God, parents, and superiors. For, according to the opinion of the Holy Doctor, religion eminently contains piety, observance or dulia, and gratitude; piety is at once observance and gratitude in an excellent manner; finally, observance virtually contains gratitude; and gratitude formally becomes a special virtue only when it is not, as it were, a part of any higher office. Cf. St. Thomas, q. 106, art. 1. Lessius, however, rather—but less well—assigns our grateful mind toward God, parents, and superiors to the special virtue of gratitude. Cf. Lessius, place cited, nos. 2-4.