Monstrous people that we are—dogs, wolves, tigers, fiends, devils in human form—we not only quarrel, oppress and tyrannize ourselves, but, like so many firebrands, incite and encourage others. Our whole life is perpetual combat, conflict, pitched battle, snarling strife. “The goddess Discord” has settled in our tents; “everything comes from strife.” We pit wit against wit, wealth against wealth, strength against strength, fortune against fortune, friends against friends. As in a sea battle, we turn our broadsides; or, like two millstones rubbing continually, we set ourselves on fire or break one another’s backs, until both are ruined and consumed.

Wretched creatures! To fatten and enrich ourselves, we care nothing how we get wealth—“money by whatever means”—how many thousands we ruin, whom we oppress, through whose downfall we rise, or whom we injure: orphaned children, widows, whole communities, all to satisfy our private desires.

Though we have countless riches, an abundance of wealth and treasure, we remain utterly pitiless, merciless, remorseless and uncharitable. While our poor brother is needy, sick, in desperate distress and about to starve for lack of food, we would rather, as the fox told the ape, let our tail drag along the ground than cover his bare backside.

We would rather squander our wealth, use it up on dogs, hawks, hounds, unnecessary buildings and extravagant clothes, gorge ourselves or let it go to waste than give him a share. We would rather take what little he has than relieve his need.

Like the dog in the manger, we neither use it ourselves nor allow others to use or enjoy it. We part with nothing while we live; by failing to arrange our household affairs and set things in order, we set everyone quarrelling after our death.

Poor Lazarus lies howling at his gates for a few crumbs, asking only for scraps and leftovers. Let him cry and howl, starve and eat his own flesh: the rich man takes no notice of him.

A poor relation fallen on hard times approaches him on the road amid all his splendour and runs bareheaded beside him, begging, appealing to those old bonds of friendship, marriage and blood: uncle, cousin, brother, father—

By these tears, by your right hand, I beg you: If I have deserved anything from you, or anything of mine Has ever been dear to you, have pity on me.

“Show some pity for Christ’s sake; pity a sick man, an old man,” and so on. He does not care: ride on. Plead sickness, unavoidable loss of limbs or goods, debts incurred as a guarantor, shipwreck, fires or public disasters; show your needs and infirmities—

Even if he swears by holy Osiris and says, “Believe me, I am not pretending; cruel people, lift up a lame man.”

Swear, protest, call God and all his angels to witness: “find someone who does not know you”; you are a feigned invalid, a cheat. He is unmoved. “The poor man lies downtrodden everywhere.” Ride on; he takes no notice.

Present a petition as he passes in the name of a thousand orphans, a hospital, a shelter for the sick, a prison; they cry to him for help. Ride on: “you are speaking to a deaf man.” He does not care. Let them eat stones, be eaten up by vermin, rot in their own filth: he does not care.

Show him a harbour, a bridge, a school, a fortification or some other public work in disrepair: ride on. “Please, your worship, your honour, for God’s sake, for your country’s sake”—ride on.

But show him a roll on which his name will be recorded in golden letters and praised to all posterity, with his coat of arms displayed and his emblems visible, and perhaps he will stop and contribute. Or, if you can thunder at him, as Papists do, about works of satisfaction and merit, or persuade him that by these means he will save his soul from hell and free it from purgatory—if he has any religion—then in all likelihood he will listen and stop.

Or if he has no children, no close relation or heir whom he cares for at least, or cannot otherwise decide how or where to dispose of his possessions—for he cannot take them with him—perhaps then he will build a school or hospital during his lifetime, or be persuaded to make a generous bequest for religious and charitable purposes.

For I dare say boldly that vainglory, this belief in merit, and the necessity forced on people when they do not know how else to leave their possessions or what better to do with them, are the chief causes of most of our good works.

I do not press this argument to detract from anyone’s charitable devotion or generosity, or to condemn any good work. There are undoubtedly many sanctified, noble and worthy-minded people—divine spirits—who, out of true zeal and for virtue’s sake, generously give from compassion and pity. As far as they can, they do good to everyone, clothe the naked, feed the hungry, comfort the sick and needy, relieve everyone, forget and forgive injuries, as true charity requires. Yet for the most part there is “something feigned,” a great deal of hypocrisy, much fault and failing.

Cosimo de’ Medici, that wealthy citizen of Florence, frankly confessed to a close friend who asked why he built so many splendid public palaces and gave so generously to scholars: it was not because he loved learning more than other people, “but to make his own name everlasting, to gain immortality through scholars; for when his friends were dead, walls decayed and all inscriptions gone, books would remain until the world’s end.”

The lantern in Athens was built by Xenocles, the theatre by Pericles, the famous port of Piraeus by Musicles, the statue of Pallas by Phidias, the Pantheon by Callicratidas. Yet all these splendid monuments have decayed and long since fallen into ruin; only their builders’ names flourish, preserved through writers.