My son’s life is as dear to me as my own; and in saving him you preserve me too: in this case I will acknowledge myself obliged to you, that is to say, in my son’s name; for in my own, and in strictness, I am not; but I am content to make myself a voluntary debtor. What if he had borrowed money? my paying of it does not at all make it my debt. It would put me to the blush perhaps to have him taken in bed with another man’s wife; but that does not make me an adulterer. It is a wonderful delight and satisfaction that I receive in his safety; but still this good is not a benefit. A man may be the better for an animal, a plant, a stone; but there must be a will, an intention, to make it an obligation. You save the son without so much as knowing the father, nay, without so much as thinking of him; and, perhaps you would have done the same thing even if you had hated him.