Disowned (15-19)

Will you, gentlemen of the jury, empower this man to punish his benefactor, to banish his saviour, to hate the one who made him sane, to take vengeance on the one who set him on his feet? Not if you do what is just. For if I were really now guilty of the greatest offences, there was no slight gratitude owing me previously; keeping this in sight and in mind, he would have done well to ignore the present and to be prompt to forgive for the sake of the past, especially if the benefaction were so great as to overtop everything subsequent. That, I think, is true of mine toward this man, whom I saved, who is my debtor for the whole of his life, to whom I have given existence, sanity, and intelligence, and that at a time when all the others had finally given up and were confessing themselves defeated by the malady.

My benefaction, I think, is the greater because,

What do you suppose my sufferings were, what my exertions, to be with him, to wait upon him, to watch my opportunity, now yielding to the full force of the ailment, now bringing my professional skill to bear when the disorder abated a little? And truly, of all these duties that are included in medical science, the most dangerous is to treat such patients and to approach people in that condition, for often they loose their frenzy upon those who are near them, when their ailment has become severe. And yet none of these considerations made me hesitant or faint-hearted. I joined battle with the disease and measured myself against it in every way, and so at last prevailed by means of my remedy.

Let no one, hearing this, be quick to remark: “What sort of feat is it, and how great, to give a remedy?”’ Many things must precede this; one must prepare the way for the medicine, make the

When a man has endured all this, has wrestled with an illness so serious, and has conquered the ailment of all ailments most difficult to master, will you empower the plaintiff to disown him again, permit him to interpret the laws in any way he will against a benefactor, and allow him to fight with nature?

I, obeying nature, save and preserve my father for my own sake, gentlemen of the jury, even if he wrongs me; but that father, following, he says, the laws, ruins the son that has done him a benefit, and deprives him of his family. He is his son’s enemy, I am my father’s friend. I cherish nature, he slights and insults her just claims. To think of a father who hates his son unjustly! To think of a son that loves his father still more unjustly! For I bring it as a charge

Truly, truly, this matter is not as you will have it tobe. Youillinterpret the laws, father, for they are well made. Nature and law are not at war in the matter of good-will; they go hand in hand there, and work together for the righting of wrongs. You mistreat your benefactor; you wrong nature. Why wrong the laws, as well as nature? They mean to be good, and just, and kindly to children, but you will not allow it, inciting them repeatedly against one son as if his name were legion, and not suffering them to rest contented with punishments when they are willing to rest contented with demonstrations of filial affection; and yet they were not made, surely, as a menace to those who have done no wrong. Indeed, the laws permit suit to be brought on the charge of ingratitude against persons who do

That it is neither possible for him to disown a son after having already once for all exhausted his paternal right and made use of the laws, nor yet just to thrust away one who has shown himself so great a benefactor and exclude him from the house has been, I think, sufficiently established.