There are some further questions that here suggest themselves, such as whether the father’s claims to service ought to be unlimited, and the son should obey him in everything, or whether in sickness he should obey the physician, and in the election of a general should choose him who is skilled in war; and, similarly, whether one ought to help one’s friend rather than a good man, and repay a benefactor rather than make a present to a comrade, if one cannot do both.

We may, perhaps, say that to lay down precise rules for all such cases is scarcely possible; for the different cases differ in all sorts of ways, according to the importance or unimportance, the nobility or necessity of the act. But it is tolerably evident that no single person’s claims can override all others; and that, as a general rule, we ought to repay benefits received before we do a favour to a comrade⁠—just as, if we had borrowed money, we ought to pay our creditors before we make presents to our comrades.