There is a reasonable objection to all of this, and Marcus raises it against himself. If I keep no account at all of the good I do, won’t I end up doing less of it. He answers in four lines at the end of the same passage, and the answer is short enough that it is easy to read past. Let’s take those four lines slowly.
— Must a man then be one of these, who in a manner act thus without observing it? — Yes.
— But this very thing is necessary, the observation of what a man is doing: for, it may be said, it is characteristic of the social animal to perceive that he is working in a social manner, and indeed to wish that his social partner also should perceive it.
— It is true what thou sayest, but thou dost not rightly understand what is now said: and for this reason thou wilt become one of those of whom I spoke before, for even they are misled by a certain show of reason. But if thou wilt choose to understand the meaning of what is said, do not fear that for this reason thou wilt omit any social act.
The objection is a good one, and Marcus says so. A person acting among other people ought to know that is what he is doing, and there is something natural in wanting the other person to know it too. Marcus grants that the sentence is true. What he denies is the use it is being put to. Then he says the hard part: the first two men, the one who files the favour and the one who keeps a private tally, are misled by a certain show of reason. Neither of them is careless. Each of them has an argument.
Hold the three positions and look at what each one costs the man holding it. The man who keeps the account believes the account is what keeps him generous, so the act now rests on the record. On the day nobody will ever know, there is nothing underneath it. The second man hears that the counting is the problem and quietly does less — he steps back from the service in order to get clear of the bookkeeping, and he has given up the act while keeping the self-concern intact. The vine is the third. It has no record and it also has no reason to stop.
Marcus writes the guard clause because the second man is the likely reader. Someone who has understood the vine, and is now carrying a suspicion of his own good acts, will find his hand slowing. That suspicion has a show of reason too. Do not fear that for this reason thou wilt omit any social act is Marcus putting a hand on that arm.
So what are we aiming at. We want the act to stand up on its own when the record is taken away. Not to keep the act propped on being seen, and not to drop the act in order to be free of the propping.
Let us see where this shows up in an ordinary day. Three places.
- You let a car in ahead of you in slow traffic and the driver pulls away without raising a hand.
- You put something back at home, or deal with a small mess, and nobody will ever know it needed dealing with.
- Later the same day, in conversation, an opening appears where the thing you did would fit naturally into the sentence.
In all three, watch for the small sentence that arrives explaining why it would be right for this to be known. Not the wanting. The wanting is easy to spot. Watch for the reason that comes attached to it, the one with a respectable shape — that it is only fair, that they should know, that people ought to be able to see who does the work.
You are not deciding anything in that second, and you are not trying to argue back. Watch the reason arrive, and leave it as it is.