It should be acknowledged as a universal truth that if one person helps another, the latter will forever resent the former, because it is uncomfortable to be in moral debt. The only way to avoid this outcome is for help to be recompensed, either by a return of favours or – better far – by an undertaking from the helpee to find an opportunity to help someone else in future, thus passing onward the good deed.

The universal truth at the hub of these remarks is well illustrated by the case of the quarrel between that unpleasant, egomaniacal, paranoid, toxic, ghastly genius Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and that unimpeachable man of reason, amenity, civilisation, and yet greater genius, David Hume. As the epithets here suggest, I am of