ought you to lend it him? Now, or to|morrow, or next month? And for how long a time? It is evident, that no ge|neral rule can be laid down, by which a precise answer can, in all cases, be given to any of these questions. The differ|ence between his character and your's, be|tween his circumstances and your's, may be such, that you may be perfectly grateful, and justly refuse to lend him a halfpenny: and, on the contrary, you may be wil|ling to lend, or even to give him ten times the sum which he lent you, and yet justly be accused of the blackest in|gratitude, and of not having fulfilled the hundredth part of the obligation you lie under. As the duties of gratitude, how|ever, are perhaps the most sacred of all those which the beneficent virtues pre|scribe to us, so the general rules which determine them are, as I said before, the most accurate. Those which ascertain the actions required by friendship, hu|manity, hospitality, generosity, are still more vague and indeterminate.
There is, however, one virtue of which the general rules determine with the great|est
