POVERTY TO A WISE MAN IS RATHER A BLESSING THAN A MISFORTUNE.
No man shall ever be poor that goes to himself for what he wants;
and that is the readiest way to riches. Nature, indeed, will have
her due; but yet whatsoever is beyond necessity is precarious, and
not necessary. It is not her business to gratify the palate, but to
satisfy a craving stomach. Bread, when a man is hungry, does his work,
let it be never so coarse; and water when he is dry; let his thirst
be quenched, and Nature is satisfied, no matter whence it comes, or
whether he drinks in gold, silver, or in the hollow of his hand. To
promise a man riches, and to teach him poverty, is to deceive him: but
shall I call him poor that wants nothing; though he maybe beholden for
it to his patience, rather than to his fortune? Or shall any man deny
him to be rich, whose riches can never be taken away? Whether is it
better to have much or enough? He that has much desires more, and shows
that he has not yet enough; but he that has enough is at rest. Shall
a man be reputed the less rich for not having that for which he shall
be banished; for which his very wife, or son, shall poison him: that
which gives him security in war, and quiet in peace; which he possesses
without danger, and disposes of without trouble? No man can be poor
that has enough; nor rich, that covets more than he has. Alexander,
after all his conquests, complained that he wanted more worlds; he
desired something more, even when he had gotten all: and that which was
sufficient for human nature was not enough for one man. Money never
made any man rich; for the more he had, the more he still coveted. The
richest man that ever lived is poor in my opinion, and in any man’s may
be so: but he that keeps himself to the stint of Nature, does neither
feel poverty nor fear it; nay, even in poverty itself there are some
things superfluous. Those which the world calls happy, their felicity
is a false splendor, that dazzles the eyes of the vulgar; but our rich
man is glorious and happy within. There is no ambition in hunger or
thirst: let there be food, and no matter for the table, the dish, and
the servants, nor with what meats nature is satisfied. Those are the
torments of luxury, that rather stuff the stomach than fill it: it
studies rather to cause an appetite than to allay it. It is not for us
to say, “This is not handsome; that is common; the other offends my
eye.” Nature provides for health, not delicacy. When the trumpet sounds
a charge, the poor man knows that he is not aimed at; when they cry
out _fire_, his body is all he has to look after: if he be to take a
journey, there is no blocking up of streets, and thronging of passages,
for a parting compliment: a small matter fills his belly, and contents
his mind: he lives from hand to mouth, without caring or fearing for
to-morrow. The temperate rich man is but his counterfeit; his wit is
quicker and his appetite calmer.
No man finds poverty a trouble to him, but he that thinks it so; and
he that thinks it so, makes it so. Does not a rich man travel more
at ease with less luggage, and fewer servants? Does he not eat many
times as little and as coarse in the field as a poor man? Does he
not for his own pleasure, sometimes, and for variety, feed upon the
ground, and use only earthen vessels? Is not he a madman then, that
always fears what he often desires, and dreads the thing that he takes
delight to imitate: he that would know the worst of poverty, let him
but compare the looks of the rich and of the poor, and he shall find
the poor man to have a smoother brow, and to be more merry at heart; or
if any trouble befalls him, it passes over like a cloud: whereas the
other, either his good humor is counterfeit, or his melancholy deep
and ulcerated, and the worse, because he dares not publicly own his
misfortune; but he is forced to play the part of a happy man even with
a cancer in his heart. His felicity is but personated; and if he were
but stripped of his ornaments, he would be contemptible. In buying of
a horse, we take off his clothes and his trappings, and examine his
shape and body for fear of being cozened; and shall we put an estimate
upon a man for being set off by his fortune and quality? Nay, if we see
anything of ornament about him, we are to suspect him the more for some
infirmity under it. He that is not content in poverty, would not be so
neither in plenty; for the fault is not in the thing, but in the mind.
If that be sickly, remove him from a kennel to a palace, he is at the
same pass; for he carries his disease along with him.
What can be happier than the condition both of mind and of fortune from
which we cannot fall—what can be a greater felicity than in a covetous,
designing age, for a roan to live safe among informers and thieves? It
puts a poor man into the very condition of Providence, that gives all,
without reserving anything to itself. How happy is he that owes nothing
but to himself, and only that which he can easily refuse or easily
pay! I do not reckon him poor that has but a little, but he is so that
covets more—it is a fair degree of plenty to have what is necessary.
Whether had a man better find satiety in want, or hunger in plenty? It
is not the augmenting of our fortunes, but the abating of our appetites
that makes us rich.
Why may not a man as well contemn riches in his own coffers as in
another man’s, and rather hear that they are his than feel them to be
so, though it is a great matter not to be corrupted even by having
them under the same roof. He is the greater man that is honestly poor
in the middle of plenty—but he is the more secure that is free from
the temptation of that plenty, and has the least matter for another
to design upon. It is no great business for a poor man to preach the
contempt of riches, or for a rich man to extol the benefits of poverty,
because we do not know how either the one or the other would behave
himself in the contrary condition. The best proof is the doing of it
by choice and not by necessity; for the practice of poverty in jest
is a preparation toward the bearing of it in earnest; but it is yet a
generous disposition so to provide for the worst of fortunes as what
may be easily borne—the premeditation makes them not only tolerable but
delightful to us, for there is that in them without which nothing can
be comfortable, that is to say, security. If there were nothing else in
poverty but the certain knowledge of our friends, it were yet a most
desirable blessing, when every man leaves us but those that love us.
It is a shame to place the happiness of life in gold and silver, for
which bread and water is sufficient; or, at the worst, hunger puts an
end to hunger.
For the honor of _poverty_, it was both the _foundation_ and the _cause
of the Roman empire_; and no man was ever yet so poor but he had enough
to carry him to his journey’s end.
All I desire is that my property may not be a burden to myself, or make
me so to others; and that is the best state of fortune that is neither
directly necessitous, nor far from it. A mediocricity of fortune with
a gentleness of mind, will preserve us from fear or envy, which is a
desirable condition, for no man wants power to do mischief. We never
consider the blessing of coveting nothing, and the glory of being full
in ourselves, without depending upon Fortune. With parsimony a little
is sufficient and without it nothing; whereas frugality makes a poor
man rich. If we lose an estate, we had better never have had it—he that
has least to lose has least to fear, and those are better satisfied
whom Fortune never favored, than those whom she has forsaken.
The state is most commodious that lies betwixt poverty and plenty.
Diogenes understood this very well when he put himself into an
incapacity of losing any thing. That course of life is most commodious
which is both safe and wholesome—the body is to be indulged no farther
than for health, and rather mortified than not kept in subjection to
the mind. It is necessary to provide against hunger, thirst, and cold;
and somewhat for a covering to shelter us against other inconveniences;
but not a pin matter whether it be of turf or of marble—a man may lie
as warm and as dry under a thatched as under a gilded roof. Let the
mind be great and glorious, and all other things are despicable in
comparison. “The future is uncertain, and I had rather beg of myself
not to desire any thing, than of Fortune to bestow it.”
SENECA OF ANGER.
CHAPTER I.
ANGER DESCRIBED, IT IS AGAINST NATURE, AND ONLY TO BE FOUND IN MAN.
We are here to encounter the most outrageous, brutal, dangerous, and
intractable of all passions; the most loathsome and unmannerly; nay,
the most ridiculous too; and the subduing of this monster will do a
great deal toward the establishment of human peace. It is the method of
_physicians_ to begin with a description of the disease, before they
meddle with the cure: and I know not why this may not do as well in the
distempers of the mind as in those of the body.
The _Stoics_ will have _anger_ to be a “desire of punishing another
for some injury done.” Against which it is objected, that we are many
times angry with those that never did hurt us, but possibly may, though
the harm be not as yet done. But I say, that they hurt us already in
conceit: and the very purpose of it is an injury in thought before it
breaks out into act. It is opposed again, that if anger were a _desire
of punishing_, mean people would not be angry with great ones that are
out of their reach; for no man can be said to desire any thing which he
judges impossible to compass. But I answer to this, That _anger_ is the
_desire_, not the _power_ and _faculty_ of _revenge_; neither is any
man so low, but that the greatest man alive may peradventure lie at his
mercy.
Aristotle takes _anger_ to be, “a desire of paying sorrow for sorrow;”
and of plaguing those that have plagued us. It is argued against both,
that beasts are angry; though neither provoked by any injury, nor moved
with a desire of any body’s grief or punishment. Nay, though they cause
it, they do not design or seek it. Neither is _anger_ (how unreasonable
soever in itself) found anywhere but in reasonable creatures. It is
true, the beasts have an impulse of rage and fierceness; as they are
more affected also than men with some pleasures; but we may as well
call them luxurious and ambitious as angry. And yet they are not
without certain images of human affections. They have their likings
and their loathings; but neither the passions of reasonable nature,
nor their virtues, nor their vices. They are moved to fury by some
objects; they are quieted by others; they have their terrors and their
disappointments, but without reflection: and let them be never so much
irritated or affrighted, so soon as ever the occasion is removed they
fall to their meat again, and lie down and take their rest. Wisdom and
thought are the goods of the mind, whereof brutes are wholly incapable;
and we are as unlike them within as we are without: they have an
odd kind of fancy, and they have a voice too; but inarticulate and
confused, and incapable of those variations which are familiar to us.
Anger is not only a vice, but a vice point-blank against nature, for it
divides instead of joining; and in some measure, frustrates the end of
Providence in human society. One man was born to help another; anger
makes us destroy one another; the one unites, the other separates; the
one is beneficial to us, the other mischievous; the one succors even
strangers, the other destroys even the most intimate friends; the one
ventures all to save another, the other ruins himself to undo another.
Nature is bountiful, but anger is pernicious: for it is not fear, but
mutual love that binds up mankind.
There are some motions that look like anger, which cannot properly be
called so; as the passion of the people against the _gladiators_, when
they hang off, and will not make so quick a dispatch as the spectators
would have them: there is something in it of the humor of children,
that if they get a fall, will never leave bawling until the naughty
ground is beaten, and then all is well again. They are angry without
any cause or injury; they are deluded by an imitation of strokes, and
pacified with counterfeit tears. A false and a childish sorrow is
appeased with as false and as childish a revenge. They take it for a
contempt, if the _gladiators_ do not immediately cast themselves upon
the sword’s point. They look presently about them from one to another,
as who should say; “Do but see, my masters, how these rogues abuse us.”
To descend to the particular branches and varieties would be
unnecessary and endless. There is a stubborn, a vindictive, a
quarrelsome, a violent, a froward, a sullen, a morose kind of anger;
and then we have this variety in complication too. One goes no
further than words; another proceeds immediately to blows, without a
word speaking; a third sort breaks out into cursing and reproachful
language; and there are that content themselves with chiding and
complaining. There is a conciliable anger and there is an implacable;
but in what form or degree soever it appears, all anger, without
exception, is vicious.
CHAPTER II.
THE RISE OF ANGER.
The question will be here, whether _anger_ takes its rise from impulse
or judgment; that is, whether it be moved of its own accord, or, as
many other things are, from within us, that arise we know not how? The
clearing of this point will lead us to greater matters.
The _first_ motion of _anger_ is in truth involuntary, and only a kind
of menacing preparation towards it. The _second_ deliberates; as who
should say, “This injury should not pass without a revenge,” and there
it stops. The _third_ is impotent; and, right or wrong, resolves upon
vengeance. The _first motion_ is not to be avoided, nor indeed the
_second_, any more than yawning for company; custom and care may lessen
it, but reason itself cannot overcome it. The _third_, as it rises upon
consideration, it must fall so too, for that motion which proceeds with
judgment may be taken away with judgment. A man thinks himself injured,
and hath a mind to be revenged, but for some reason lets it rest. This
is not properly _anger_, but an _affection overruled by reason_; a kind
of proposal disapproved—and what are reason and affection, but only
changes of the mind for the better or for the worse? Reason deliberates
before it judges; but anger passes sentence without deliberation.
Reason only attends the matter in hand; but anger is startled at every
accident; it passes the bounds of reason, and carries it away with
it. In short, “anger is an agitation of the mind that proceeds to the
resolution of a revenge, the mind assenting to it.”
There is no doubt but anger is moved by the species of an injury; but
whether that motion be voluntary or involuntary is the point in debate;
though it seems manifest to me that _anger_ does nothing but where the
mind goes along with it, for, first, to take an offence, and then to
meditate a revenge, and after that to lay both propositions together,
and say to myself, “This injury ought not to have been done; but as the
case stands, I must do myself right.” This discourse can never proceed
without the concurrence of the will.
The first motion indeed is single; but all the rest is deliberation
and superstructure—there is something understood and condemned—an
indignation conceived and a revenge propounded. This can never be
without the agreement of the mind to the matter in deliberation. The
end of this question is to know the nature and quality of _anger_. If
it be bred in us it will never yield to reason, for all involuntary
motions are inevitable and invincible; as a kind of horror and
shrugging upon the sprinkling of cold water; the hair standing on
end at ill news; giddiness at the sight of a precipice; blushing at
lewd discourse. In these cases reason can do no good, but _anger_
may undoubtedly be overcome by caution and good counsel, for it is a
_voluntary vice_, and not of the condition of those accidents that
befall us as frailties of our humanity, amongst which must be reckoned
the first motions of the mind after the opinion of an injury received,
which it is not in the power of human nature to avoid, and this is it
that affects us upon the stage, or in a story.
Can any man read the death of Pompey, and not be touched with an
indignation? The sound of a trumpet rouses the spirits and provokes
courage. It makes a man sad to see the shipwreck even of an enemy; and
we are much surprised by fear in other cases—all these motions are not
so much affections as preludes to them. The clashing of arms or the
beating of a drum excites a war-horse: nay, a song from Xenophantes
would make Alexander take his sword in his hand.
In all these cases the mind rather suffers than acts, and therefore it
is not an affection _to be moved_, but _to give way_ to that motion,
and to follow willingly what was started by chance—these are not
affections, but impulses of the body. The bravest man in the world may
look pale when he puts on his armor, his knees knock, and his heart
work before the battle is joined: but these are only _motions_; whereas
_anger_ is an _excursion_, and proposes revenge or punishment, which
cannot be without the mind. As fear flies, so anger assaults; and it is
not possible to resolve, either upon violence or caution, without the
concurrence of the will.
CHAPTER III.
ANGER MAY BE SUPPRESSED.
It is an idle thing to pretend that we cannot govern our _anger_;
for some things that we do are much harder than others that we ought
to do; the wildest affections may be tamed by discipline, and there
is hardly anything which the mind will do but it may do. There needs
no more argument in this case than the instances of several persons,
both powerful and impatient, that have gotten the absolute mastery of
themselves in this point.
Thrasippus in his drink fell foul upon the cruelties of Pisistratus;
who, when he was urged by several about him to make an example of him,
returned this answer, “Why should I be angry with a man that stumbles
upon me blindfold?” In effect most of our quarrels are of our own
making, either by mistake or by aggravation. Anger comes sometimes upon
us, but we go oftener to it, and instead of rejecting it we call it.
Augustus was a great master of his passion: for Timagenus, an
historian, wrote several bitter things against his person and his
family: which passed among the people plausibly enough, as pieces of
rash wit commonly do. Cæsar advised him several times to forbear; and
when that would not do, forbade him his roof. After this, Asinius
Pollio gave him entertainment; and he was so well beloved in the
city, that every man’s house was open to him. Those things that he
had written in honor of Augustus, he recited and burnt, and publicly
professed himself Cæsar’s enemy. Augustus, for all this, never fell
out with any man that received him; only once, he told Pollio, that he
had taken a _snake_ into his bosom: and as Pollio was about to excuse
himself; “No,” says Cæsar, interrupting him, “make your best of him.”
And offering to cast him off at that very moment, if Cæsar pleased: “Do
you think,” says Cæsar, “that I will ever contribute to the parting of
you, that made you friends?” for Pollio was angry with him before, and
only entertained him now because Cæsar had discarded him.
The moderation of Antigonus was remarkable. Some of his soldiers were
railing at him one night, where there was but a hanging betwixt them.
Antigonus overheard them, and putting it gently aside; “Soldiers,” says
he, “stand a little further off, for fear the king should hear you.”
And we are to consider, not only violent examples, but moderate, where
there wanted neither cause of displeasure nor power of revenge: as in
the case of Antigonus, who the same night hearing his soldiers cursing
him for bringing them into so foul a way, he went to them, and without
telling them who he was, helped them out of it. “Now,” says he, “you
may be allowed to curse him that brought you into the mire, provided
you bless him that took you out of it.”
It was a notable story that of Vedius Pallio, upon his inviting of
Augustus to supper. One of his boys happened to break a glass: and his
master, in a rage, commanded him to be thrown in a pond to feed his
lampreys. This action of his might be taken for _luxury_, though, in
truth, it was cruelty. The boy was seized, but brake loose and threw
himself at Augustus’ feet, only desiring that he might not die that
death. Cæsar, in abhorrence of the barbarity, presently ordered all
the rest of the glasses to be broken, the boy to be released, and the
pond to be filled up, that there might be no further occasion for an
inhumanity of that nature. This was an authority well employed. Shall
the breaking of a glass cost a man his life? Nothing but a predominant
fear could ever have mastered his choleric and sanguinary disposition.
This man deserved to die a thousand deaths, either for eating human
flesh at second-hand in his _lampreys_, or for keeping of his fish to
be so fed.
It is written of Præxaspes (a favorite of Cambyses, who was much given
to wine) that he took the freedom to tell this prince of his hard
drinking, and to lay before him the scandal and the inconveniences of
his excesses; and how that, in those distempers, he had not the command
of himself. “Now,” says Cambyses, “to show you your mistake, you shall
see me drink deeper than ever I did, and yet keep the use of my eyes,
and of my hands, as well as if I were sober.” Upon this he drank to
a higher pitch than ordinary, and ordered Præxaspes’ son to go out,
and stand on the other side of the threshold, with his left arm over
his head; “And,” says he, “if I have a good aim, have at the heart of
him.” He shot, and upon cutting up the young man, they found indeed
that the arrow had struck him through the middle of the heart. “What
do you think now,” says Cambyses, “is my hand steady or not?” “Apollo
himself,” says Præxaspes, “could not have outdone it.” It may be a
question now, which was the greater impiety, the murder itself, or
the commendation of it; for him to take the heart of his son, while
it was yet reeking and panting under the wound, for an occasion of
flattery: why was there not another experiment made upon the father,
to try if Cambyses could not have yet mended his shot? This was a most
unmanly violation of hospitality; but the approbation of the act was
still worse than the crime itself. This example of Præxaspes proves
sufficiently that a man may repress his anger; for he returned not
one ill word, no not so much as a complaint; but he paid dear for his
good counsel. He had been wiser, perhaps, if he had let the king alone
in his cups, for he had better have drunk wine than blood. It is a
dangerous office to give good advice to intemperate princes.
Another instance of anger suppressed, we have in Harpagus, who was
commanded to expose Cyrus upon a mountain. But the child was preserved;
which, when Astyages came afterwards to understand, he invited Harpagus
to a dish of meat; and when he had eaten his fill, he told him it was a
piece of his son, and asked him how he liked the seasoning. “Whatever
pleases your Majesty,” says Harpagus, “must please me:” and he made no
more words of it. It is most certain, that we might govern our anger if
we would; for the same thing that galls us at home gives us no offence
at all abroad; and what is the reason of it, but that we are patient in
one place, and froward in another?
It was a strong provocation that which was given to Philip of Macedon,
the father of Alexander. The Athenians sent their ambassadors to him,
and they were received with this compliment, “Tell me, gentlemen,”
says Philip, “what is there that I can do to oblige the Athenians?”
Democharas, one of the ambassadors, told him, that they would take it
for a great obligation if he would be pleased to hang himself. This
insolence gave an indignation to the by-standers; but Philip bade them
not to meddle with him, but even to let that foul-mouthed fellow go as
he came. “And for you, the rest of the ambassadors,” says he, “pray
tell the Athenians, that it is worse to speak such things than to hear
and forgive them.” This wonderful patience under contumelies was a
great means of Philip’s security.
CHAPTER IV.
IT IS A SHORT MADNESS, AND A DEFORMED VICE.
He was much in the right, whoever it was, that first called _anger
a short madness_; for they have both of them the same symptoms; and
there is so wonderful a resemblance betwixt the transports of _choler_
and those of _frenzy_, that it is a hard matter to know the one from
the other. A bold, fierce, and threatening countenance, as pale as
ashes, and, in the same moment, as red as blood; a glaring eye, a
wrinkled brow, violent motions, the hands restless and perpetually
in action, wringing and menacing, snapping of the joints, stamping
with the feet, the hair starting, trembling of the lips, a forced and
squeaking voice; the speech false and broken, deep and frequent sighs,
and ghastly looks; the veins swell, the heart pants, the knees knock;
with a hundred dismal accidents that are common to both distempers.
Neither is _anger_ a bare resemblance only of madness, but many times
an irrevocable transition into the thing itself. How many persons
have we known, read, and heard of, that have lost their wits in a
passion, and never came to themselves again? It is therefore to be
avoided, not only for moderation’s sake, but also for health. Now, if
the outward appearance of anger be so foul and hideous, how deformed
must that miserable mind be that is harassed with it? for it leaves
no place either for counsel or friendship, honesty or good manners;
no place either for the exercise of reason, or for the offices of
life. If I were to describe it, I would draw a tiger bathed in blood,
sharp set, and ready to take a leap at his prey; or dress it up as the
poets represent the furies, with whips, snakes, and flames; it should
be sour, livid, full of scars, and wallowing in gore, raging up and
down, destroying, grinning, bellowing, and pursuing; sick of all other
things, and most of all, itself. It turns beauty into deformity, and
the calmest counsels into fierceness: it disorders our very garments,
and fills the mind with horror. How abominable is it in the soul then,
when it appears so hideous even through the bones, the skin and so
many impediments! Is not he a madman that has lost the government of
himself, and is tossed hither and thither by his fury as by a tempest?
the executioner and the murderer of his nearest friends? The smallest
matter moves it, and makes us unsociable and inaccessible. It does all
things by violence, as well upon itself as others; and it is, in short;
the master of all passions.
There is not any creature so terrible and dangerous by nature, but
it becomes fiercer by anger. Not that beasts have human affections,
but certain impulses they have which come very near them. The boar
foams, champs, and whets his tusks; the bull tosses his horns in the
air, bounds, and tears up the ground with his feet; the lion roars
and swinges himself with his tail; the serpent swells; and there is
a ghastly kind of fellness in the aspect of a mad dog. How great a
wickedness is it now to indulge a violence, that does not only turn
a man into a beast, but makes even the most outrageous of beasts
themselves to be more dreadful and mischievous! A vice that carries
along with it neither pleasure nor profit, neither honor nor security;
but on the contrary, destroys us to all the comfortable and glorious
purposes of our reasonable being. Some there are, that will have the
root of it to be the greatness of mind. And, why may we not as well
entitle _impudence_ to _courage_, whereas the one is proud, the other
brave; the one is gracious and gentle, the other rude and furious?
At the same rate we may ascribe magnanimity to avarice, luxury, and
ambition, which are all but splendid impotences, without measure and
without foundation. There is nothing great but what is virtuous, nor
indeed truly great, but what is also composed and quiet. Anger, alas!
is but a wild impetuous blast, an empty tumor, the very infirmity of
woman and children; a brawling, clamorous evil: and the more noise the
less courage; as we find it commonly, that the boldest tongues have the
faintest hearts.
CHAPTER V.
ANGER IS NEITHER WARRANTABLE NOR USEFUL.
In the first place, Anger is _unwarrantable_ as it is _unjust_: for it
falls many times upon the wrong person, and discharges itself upon the
innocent instead of the guilty: beside the disproportion of making the
most trivial offences to be capital, and punishing an inconsiderate
word perhaps with torments, fetters, infamy, or death. It allows a man
neither time nor means for defence, but judges a cause without hearing
it, and admits of no mediation. It flies into the face of truth itself,
if it be of the adverse party; and turns obstinacy in an error, into
an argument of justice. It does every thing with agitation and tumult;
whereas reason and equity can destroy whole families, if there be
occasion for it, even to the extinguishing of their names and memories,
without any indecency, either of countenance or action.
Secondly, It is unsociable to the highest point; for it spares neither
friend nor foe; but tears all to pieces, and casts human nature into
a perpetual state of war. It dissolves the bond of mutual society,
insomuch that our very companions and relations dare not come near
us; it renders us unfit for the ordinary offices of life: for we can
neither govern our tongues, our hands, nor any part of our body. It
tramples upon the laws of hospitality, and of nations, leaves every man
to be his own carver, and all things, public and private, sacred and
profane, suffer violence.
Thirdly, It is to no purpose. “It is a sad thing,” we cry, “to put up
with these injuries, and we are not able to bear them;” as if any man
that can bear _anger_ could not bear an _injury_, which is much more
supportable. You will say that anger does some good yet, for it keeps
people in awe, and secures a man from contempt; never considering, that
it is more dangerous to be feared than despised. Suppose that an angry
man could do as much as he threatens; the more terrible, he is still
the more odious; and on the other side, if he wants power, he is the
more despicable for his anger; for there is nothing more wretched than
a choleric huff, that makes a noise, and nobody cares for it.
If anger would be valuable because men are afraid of it, why not an
adder, a toad, or a scorpion as well? It makes us lead the life of
gladiators; we live, and we fight together. We hate the happy, despise
the miserable, envy our superiors, insult our inferiors, and there
is nothing in the world which we will not do, either for pleasure
or profit. To be angry at offenders is to make ourselves the common
enemies of mankind, which is both weak and wicked; and we may as well
be angry that our thistles do not bring forth apples, or that every
pebble in our ground is not an oriental pearl. If we are angry both
with young men and with old, because they do offend, why not with
infants too, because they will offend? It is laudable to rejoice for
anything that is well done; but to be transported for another man’s
doing ill, is narrow and sordid. Nor is it for the dignity of virtue
to be either angry or sad.
It is with a tainted mind as with an ulcer, not only the touch, but the
very offer at it, makes us shrink and complain; when we come once to
be carried off from our poise, we are lost. In the choice of a sword,
we take care that it be wieldy and well mounted; and it concerns us as
much to be wary of engaging in the excesses of ungovernable passions.
It is not the speed of a horse altogether that pleases us unless we
find that he can stop and turn at pleasure. It is a sign of weakness,
and a kind of stumbling, for a man to run when he intends only to
walk; and it behoves us to have the same command of our mind that we
have of our bodies. Besides that the greatest punishment of an injury
is the conscience of having done it; and no man suffers more than he
that is turned over to the pain of a repentance. How much better is it
to compose injuries than to revenge them? For it does not only spend
time, but the revenge of one injury exposes to more. In fine, as it
is unreasonable to be angry at a crime, it is as foolish to be angry
without one.
But “may not an honest man then be allowed to be angry at the murder
of his father, or the ravishing of his sister or daughter before his
face?” No, not at all. I will defend my parents, and I will repay the
injuries that are done them; but it is my piety and not my anger, that
moves me to it. I will do my duty without fear or confusion, I will not
rage, I will not weep; but discharge the office of a good man without
forfeiting the dignity of a man. If my father be assaulted, I will
endeavor to rescue him; if he be killed, I will do right to his memory;
find all this, not in any transport of passion, but in honor and
conscience. Neither is there any need of anger where reason does the
same thing.
A man may be temperate, and yet vigorous, and raise his mind according
to the occasion, more or less, as a stone is thrown according to the
discretion and intent of the caster. How outrageous have I seen some
people for the loss of a monkey or a spaniel! And were it not a shame
to have the same sense for a friend that we have for a puppy; and to
cry like children, as much for a bauble as for the ruin of our country?
This is not the effect of reason, but of infirmity. For a man indeed to
expose his person for his prince, or his parents, or his friends, out
of a sense of honesty, and judgment of duty, it is, without dispute, a
worthy and a glorious action; but it must be done then with sobriety,
calmness, and resolution.
It is high time to convince the world of the indignity and uselessness
of this passion, when it has the authority and recommendation of no
less than Aristotle himself, as an affection very much conducing to all
heroic actions that require heat and vigor: now, to show, on the other
side, that it is not in any case profitable, we shall lay open the
obstinate and unbridled madness of it: a wickedness neither sensible
of infamy nor of glory, without either modesty or fear; and if it
passes once from anger into a hardened hatred, it is incurable. It is
either stronger than reason, or it is weaker. If stronger, there is
no contending with it; if weaker, reason will do the business without
it. Some will have it that an angry man is good-natured and sincere;
whereas, in truth, he only lays himself open out of heedlessness and
want of caution. If it were in itself good the more of it the better;
but in this case, the more the worse; and a wise man does his duty,
without the aid of anything that is ill. It is objected by some,
that those are the most generous creatures which are the most prone
to anger. But, first, _reason_ in _man_ is _impetuous_ in _beasts_.
Secondly, without discipline it runs into audaciousness and temerity;
over and above that, the same thing does not help all. If anger helps
the lion, it is fear that saves the stag, swiftness the hawk, and
flight the pigeon: but man has God for his example (who is never
angry) and not the _creatures_. And yet it is not amiss sometimes to
counterfeit anger; as upon the stage; nay, upon the bench, and in the
pulpit, where the imitation of it is more effectual than the thing
itself.
But it is a great error to take this passion either for a companion
or for an assistant to virtue; that makes a man incapable of those
necessary counsels by which virtue is to govern herself. Those are
false and inauspicious powers, and destructive of themselves, which
arise only from the accession and fervor of disease. Reason judges
according to right; anger will have every thing seem right, whatever it
does, and when it has once pitched upon a mistake, it is never to be
convinced, but prefers a pertinacity, even in the greatest evil, before
the most necessary repentance.
Some people are of opinion that anger inflames and animates the
soldier; that it is a spur to bold and arduous undertakings; and that
it were better to moderate than to wholly suppress it, for fear of
dissolving the spirit and force of the mind. To this I answer, that
virtue does not need the help of vice; but where there is any ardor
of mind necessary, we may rouse ourselves, and be more or less brisk
and vigorous as there is occasion: but all without anger still. It is
a mistake to say, that we may make use of anger as a common soldier,
but not as a commander; for if it hears reason, and follows orders,
it is not properly anger; and if it does not, it is contumacious
and mutinous. By this argument a man must be angry to be valiant;
covetous to be industrious; timorous to be safe, which makes our reason
confederate with our affections. And it is all one whether passion be
inconsiderate without reason, or reason ineffectual without passion;
since the one cannot be without the other. It is true, the less the
passion, the less is the mischief; for a little passion is the smaller
evil. Nay, so far is it from being of use or advantage in the field,
that it is in place of all others where it is the most dangerous;
for the actions of war are to be managed with order and caution, not
precipitation and fancy; whereas anger is heedless and heady, and the
virtue only of _barbarous nations_; which, though their bodies were
much stronger and more hardened, were still worsted by the moderation
and discipline of the Romans. There is not upon the face of the earth
a bolder or a more indefatigable nation than the Germans; not a braver
upon a charge, nor a hardier against colds and heats; their only
delights and exercise is in arms, to the utter neglect of all things
else: and, yet upon the encounter, they are broken and destroyed
through their own undisciplined temerity, even by the most effeminate
of men. The huntsman is not angry with the wild boar when he either
pursues or receives him; a good swordsman watches his opportunity, and
keeps himself upon his guard, whereas passion lays a man open: nay,
it is one of the prime lessons in a fencing-school to learn not to
be angry. If Fabius had been _choleric_, Rome had been _lost_; and
before he conquered _Hannibal_ he overcame _himself_. If Scipio had
been _angry_, he would never have left Hannibal and his army (who were
the proper objects of his displeasure) to carry the war into Afric
and so compass his end by a more temperate way. Nay, he was so slow,
that it was charged upon him for want of mettle and resolution. And
what did the _other_ Scipio? (Africanus I mean:) how much time did he
spend before Numantia, to the common grief both of his country and
himself? Though he reduced it at last by so miserable a famine, that
the inhabitants laid violent hands upon themselves, and left neither
man, woman, nor child, to survive the ruins of it. If anger makes a
man fight better, so does wine, frenzy, nay, and fear itself; for
the greatest coward in despair does the greatest wonders. No man is
courageous in his anger that was not so without it. But put the case,
that anger by accident may have done some good, and so have fevers
removed some distempers; but it is an odious kind of remedy that makes
us indebted to a disease for a cure. How many men have been preserved
by poison; by a fall from a precipice; by a shipwreck; by a tempest!
does it therefore follow that we are to recommend the practice of these
experiments?
“But in case of an exemplary and prostitute dissolution of manners,
when Clodius shall be preferred, and Cicero rejected; when loyalty
shall be broken upon the wheel, and treason sit triumphant upon the
bench; is not this a subject to move the choler of any virtuous man?”
No, by no means, virtue will never allow of the correcting of one vice
by another; or that anger, which is the greater crime of the two,
should presume to punish the less. It is the natural property of
virtue to make a man serene and cheerful; and it is not for the dignity
of a philosopher to be transported either with grief or anger; and then
the end of anger is sorrow, the constant effect of disappointment and
repentance. But, to my purpose. If a man should be angry at wickedness,
the greater the wickedness is, the greater must be his anger; and, so
long as there is wickedness in the world he must never be pleased:
which makes his quiet dependent upon the humor or manners of others.
There passes not a day over our heads but he that is choleric shall
have some cause or other of displeasure, either from men, accidents,
or business. He shall never stir out of his house but he shall meet
with criminals of all sorts; prodigal, impudent, covetous, perfidious,
contentious, children persecuting their parents, parents cursing their
children, the innocent accused, the delinquent acquitted, and the judge
practicing that in his chamber which he condemns upon the bench. In
fine, wherever there are men there are faults; and upon these terms,
Socrates himself should never bring the same countenance home again
that he carried out with him.
If anger was sufferable in any case, it might be allowed against an
incorrigible criminal under the hand of justice: but punishment is
not matter of anger but of caution. The law is without passion, and
strikes malefactors as we do serpents and venomous creatures, for fear
of greater mischief. It is not for the dignity of a judge, when he
comes to pronounce the fatal sentence, to express any motions of anger
in his looks, words, or gestures: for he condemns the vice, not the
man; and looks upon the wickedness without anger, as he does upon the
prosperity of wicked men without envy. But though he be not angry, I
would have him a little moved in point of humanity; but yet without any
offence, either to his place or wisdom. Our passions vary, but reason
is equal; and it were a great folly for that which is stable, faithful,
and sound, to repair for succor to that which is uncertain, false, and
distempered. If the offender be incurable, take him out of the world,
that if he will not be good he may cease to be evil; but this must be
without anger too. Does any man hate an arm, or a leg, when he cuts
it off; or reckon _that_ a passion which is only a miserable cure? We
knock mad dogs on the head, and remove scabbed sheep out of the fold:
and this is not anger still, but reason, to separate the sick from
the sound. Justice cannot be angry; nor is there any need of an angry
magistrate for the punishment of foolish and wicked men. The power of
life and death must not be managed with passion. We give a horse the
spur that is restive or jadish, and tries to cast his rider; but this
is without anger too, and only to take down his stomach, and bring him,
by correction, to obedience.
It is true, that correction is necessary, yet within reason and bounds;
for it does not hurt, but profits us under an appearance of harm. Ill
dispositions in the mind are to be dealt with as those in the body: the
physician first tries purging and abstinence; if this will not do, he
proceeds to bleeding, nay, to dismembering rather than fail; for there
is no operation too severe that ends in health. The public magistrate
begins with persuasion, and his business is to beget a detestation for
vice, and a veneration for virtue; from thence, if need be, he advances
to admonition and reproach, and then to punishments; but moderate and
revocable, unless the wickedness be incurable, and then the punishment
must be so too. There is only this difference, the physician when he
cannot save his patient’s life, endeavors to make his death easy; but
the magistrate aggravates the death of the criminal with infamy and
disgrace; not as delighting in the severity of it, (for no good man
can be so barbarous) but for example, and to the end that they that
will do no good living may do some dead. The end of all correction is
either the amendment of wicked men, or to prevent the influence of
ill example: for men are punished with a respect to the future; not
to expiate offenses committed, but for fear of worse to come. Public
offenders must be a terror to others; but still, all this while, the
power of life and death must not be managed with passion. The medicine,
in the mean time must be suited to the disease; infamy cures one, pain
another, exile cures a third, beggary a fourth; but there are some that
are only to be cured by the gibbet. I would be no more angry with a
thief, or a traitor, than I am angry with myself when I open a vein.
All punishment is but a moral or civil remedy. I do not do anything
that is very ill, but yet I transgress often. Try me first with a
private reprehension, and then with a public; if that will not serve,
see what banishment will do; if not that neither, load me with chains,
lay me in prison: but if I should prove wicked for wickedness’ sake,
and leave no hope of reclaiming me, it would be a kind of mercy to
destroy me. Vice is incorporated with me; and there is no remedy but
the taking of both away together; but still without anger.
CHAPTER VI.
ANGER IN GENERAL, WITH THE DANGER AND EFFECTS OF IT.
There is no surer argument of a great mind than not to be transported
to anger by any accident; the clouds and the tempests are formed below,
but all above is quiet and serene; which is the emblem of a brave man,
that suppresses all provocations, and lives within himself, modest,
venerable, and composed: whereas anger is a turbulent humor, which, at
first dash, casts off all shame, without any regard to order, measure,
or good manners; transporting a man into misbecoming violences with his
tongue, his hands, and every part of his body. And whoever considers
the foulness and the brutality of this vice, must acknowledge that
there is no such monster in Nature as one man raging against another,
and laboring to sink that which can never be drowned but with himself
for company. It renders us incapable either of discourse or of other
common duties. It is of all passions the most powerful; for it makes a
man that is in love to kill his mistress, the ambitious man to trample
upon his honors, and the covetous to throw away his fortune.
There is not any mortal that lives free from the danger of it; for it
makes even the heavy and the good-natured to be fierce and outrageous:
it invades us like a pestilence, the lusty as well as the weak; and
it is not either strength of body, or a good diet, that can secure
us against it; nay, the most learned, and men otherwise of exemplary
sobriety, are infected with it. It is so potent a passion that Socrates
durst not trust himself with it. “Sirrah,” says he to his man, “now
would I beat you, if I were not angry with you!” There is no age or
sect of men that escapes it. Other vices take us one by one; but this,
like an _epidemical contagion_, sweeps all: men, women, and children,
princes and beggars, are carried away with it in shoals and troops as
one man.
It was never seen that a whole nation was in love with one woman, or
unanimously bent upon one vice: but here and there some particular men
are tainted with some particular crimes; whereas in anger, a single
word many times inflames the whole multitude, and men betake themselves
presently to fire and sword upon it; the rabble take upon them to give
laws to their governors; the common soldiers to their officers, to the
ruin, not only of private families, but of kingdoms: turning their arms
against their own leaders, and choosing their own generals. There is
no public council, no putting things to the vote; but in a rage the
mutineers divide from the senate, name their head, force the nobility
in their own houses, and put them to death with their own hands.
The laws of nations are violated, the persons of public ministers
affronted, whole cities infected with a general madness, and no
respite allowed for the abatement or discussing of this public tumor.
The ships are crowded with tumultuary soldiers; and in this rude and
ill-boding manner they march, and act under the conduct only of their
own passions. Whatever comes next serves them for arms, until at last
they pay for their licentious rashness with the slaughter of the whole
party: this is the event of a heady and inconsiderate war.
When men’s minds are struck with the opinion of an injury, they fall on
immediately wheresoever their passion leads them, without either order,
fear, or caution: provoking their own mischief; never at rest till they
come to blows; and pursuing their revenge, even with their bodies,
upon the points of their enemies’ weapons. So that the anger itself is
much more hurtful for us than the injury that provokes it; for the one
is bounded, but where the other will stop, no man living knows. There
are no greater slaves certainly, than those that serve anger; for they
improve their misfortunes by an impatience more insupportable than the
calamity that causes it.
Nor does it rise by degrees, as other passions, but flashes like
gunpowder, blowing up all in a moment. Neither does it only press to
the mark, but overbears everything in the way to it. Other vices drive
us, but this hurries us headlong; other passions stand firm themselves,
though perhaps we cannot resist them; but this consumes and destroys
itself: it falls like thunder or a tempest, with an irrevocable
violence, that gathers strength in the passage, and then evaporates in
the conclusion. Other vices are unreasonable, but this is unhealthful
too; other distempers have their intervals and degrees, but in this
we are thrown down as from a precipice: there is not anything so
amazing to others, or so destructive to itself; so proud and insolent
if it succeeds, or so extravagant if it be disappointed. No repulse
discourages it, and, for want of other matter to work upon, it falls
foul upon itself; and, let the ground be never so trivial, it is
sufficient for the wildest outrage imaginable. It spares neither age,
sex, nor quality.
Some people would be luxurious perchance, but that they are poor; and
others lazy, if they were not perpetually kept at work. The simplicity
of a country life, keeps many men in ignorance of the frauds and
impieties of courts and camps: but no nation or condition of men is
exempt from the impressions of anger; and it is equally dangerous, as
well in war as in peace. We find that elephants will be made familiar;
bulls will suffer children to ride upon their backs, and play with
their horns; bears and lions, by good usage, will be brought to fawn
upon their masters; how desperate a madness is it then for men, after
the reclaiming of the fiercest of beasts, and the bringing of them
to be tractable and domestic, to become yet worse than beasts one to
another! Alexander had two friends, Clytus and Lysimachus; the one he
exposed to a lion, the other to himself; and he that was turned loose
to the beast escaped. Why do we not rather make the best of a short
life, and render ourselves amiable to all while we live, and desirable
when we die?
Let us bethink ourselves of our mortality, and not squander away the
little time that we have upon animosities and feuds, as if it were
never to be at an end. Had we not better enjoy the pleasure of our own
life than to be still contriving how to gall and torment another’s?
in all our brawlings and contentions never so much as dreaming of our
weakness. Do we not know that these implacable enmities of ours lie
at the mercy of a fever, or any petty accident, to disappoint? Our
fate is at hand, and the very hour that we have set for another man’s
death may peradventure be prevented by our own. What is it that we
make all this bustle for, and so needlessly disquiet our minds? We are
offended with our servants, our masters, our princes, our clients: it
is but a little patience, and we shall be all of us equal; so that
there is no need either of ambushes or of combats. Our wrath cannot
go beyond death; and death will most undoubtedly come whether we be
peevish or quiet. It is time lost to take pains to do that which will
infallibly be done without us. But suppose that we would only have our
enemy banished, disgraced, or damaged, let his punishment be more or
less, it is yet too long, either for him to be inhumanly tormented,
or for us ourselves to be most barbarously pleased with it. It holds
in anger as in mourning, it must and it will at last fall of itself;
let us look to it then betimes, for when it is once come to an ill
habit, we shall never want matter to feed it; and it is much better to
overcome our passions than to be overcome by them. Some way or other,
either our parents, children, servants, acquaintance, or strangers,
will be continually vexing us. We are tossed hither and thither by our
affections, like a feather in a storm, and by fresh provocations the
madness becomes perpetual. Miserable creatures! that ever our precious
hours should be so ill employed! How prone and eager are we in our
hatred, and how backward in our love! Were it not much better now to
be making of friendships, pacifying of enemies, doing of good offices
both public and private, than to be still meditating of mischief, and
designing how to wound one man in his fame, another in his fortune, a
third in his person? the one being so easy, innocent, and safe, and the
other so difficult, impious, and hazardous. Nay, take a man in chains,
and at the foot of his oppressor; how many are there, who, even in this
case, have maimed themselves in the heat of their violence upon others.
This untractable passion is much more easily kept out than governed
when it is once admitted; for the stronger will give laws to the
weaker; and make reason a slave to the appetite. It carries us
headlong; and in the course of our fury, we have no more command of
our minds, than we have of our bodies down a precipice: when they are
once in motion, there is no stop until they come to the bottom. Not but
that it is possible for a man to be warm in winter, and not to sweat
in the summer, either by the benefit of the place, or the hardiness of
the body: and in like manner we may provide against anger. But certain
it is, that virtue and vice can never agree in the same subject; and
one may as well be a sick man and a sound at the same time, as a good
man, and an angry. Besides, if we will needs be quarrelsome, it must
be either with our superior, our equal, or inferior. To contend with
our superior is folly and madness: with our equals, it is doubtful and
dangerous: and with our inferiors, it is base. For does any man know
but that he that is now our enemy may come hereafter to be our friend,
over and above the reputation of clemency and good nature? And what
can be more honorable or comfortable, than to exchange a feud for a
friendship? The people of Rome never had more faithful allies than
those that were at first the most obstinate enemies; neither had the
_Roman Empire_ ever arrived at that height of power, if Providence had
not mingled the vanquished with the conquerors.
There is an end of the contest when one side deserts it; so that
the paying of anger with benefits puts a period to the controversy.
But, however, if it be our fortune to transgress, let not our anger
descend to the children, friends or relations, even of our bitterest
enemies. The very cruelty of Sylla was heightened by that instance of
incapacitating the issue of the proscribed. It is inhuman to entail the
hatred we have for the father upon his posterity.
A good and a wise man is not to be an _enemy_ of wicked men, but a
_reprover_ of them; and he is to look upon all the drunkards, the
lustful, the thankless, covetous, and ambitious, that he meets with,
not otherwise than as a physician looks upon his patients; for he that
will be angry with _any man_ must be displeased with _all_; which were
as ridiculous as to quarrel with a body for stumbling in the dark; with
one that is deaf, for not doing as you bid him; or with a school-boy
for loving his play better than his book. Democritus _laughed_, and
Heraclitus _wept_, at the folly and wickedness of the world, but we
never read of any _angry philosopher_.
This is undoubtedly the most detestable of vices, even compared with
the worst of them. Avarice scrapes and gathers together that which
somebody may be the better for: but anger lashes out, and no man comes
_off_ gratis. An angry master makes one servant run away, and another
hang himself; and his choler causes him a much greater loss than he
suffered in the occasion of it. It is the cause of mourning to the
father, and of divorce to the husband: it makes the magistrate odious,
and gives the candidate a repulse. And it is worse than luxury too,
which only aims at its proper pleasure; whereas the other is bent upon
another body’s pain.
The malevolent and the envious content themselves only to _wish_
another man miserable; but it is the business of anger to _make_ him
so, and to wreck the mischief itself; not so much desiring the hurt
of another, as to inflict it. Among the powerful, it breaks out into
open war, and into a private one with the common people, but without
force or arms. It engages us in treacheries, perpetual troubles and
contentions: it alters the very nature of a man, and punishes itself in
the persecution of others. Humanity excites us to love, this to hatred;
that to be beneficial to others, this to hurt them: beside, that,
though it proceeds from too high a conceit of ourselves, it is yet, in
effect, but a narrow and contemptible affection; especially when it
meets with a mind that is hard and impenetrable, and returns the dart
upon the head of him that casts it.
To take a farther view, now, of the miserable consequences and
sanguinary effects of this hideous distemper; from hence come
slaughters and poisons, wars, and desolations, the razing and burning
of cities; the unpeopling of nations, and the turning of populous
countries into deserts, public massacres and regicides; princes led in
triumph; some murdered in their bed-chambers; others stabbed in the
senate or cut off in the security of their spectacles and pleasures.
Some there are that take anger for a princely quality; as Darius,
who, in his expedition against the Scythians, being besought by a
nobleman, that had three sons, that he would vouchsafe to accept
of two of them into his service, and leave the third at home for a
comfort to his father. “I will do more for you than that,” says Darius,
“for you shall have them all three again;” so he ordered them to be
slain before his face, and left him their bodies. But Xerxes dealt a
little better with Pythius, who had five sons, and desired only one of
them for himself. Xerxes bade him take his choice, and he named the
_eldest_, whom he immediately commanded to be cut in halves; and one
half of the body to be laid on each side of the way when his army was
to pass betwixt them; undoubtedly a most auspicious sacrifice; but he
came afterward to the end that he deserved; for he lived to see that
prodigious power scattered and broken: and instead of military and
victorious troops, to be encompassed with carcasses. But these, you
will say, were only barbarous princes that knew neither civility nor
letters; and these savage cruelties will be imputed perchance to their
rudeness of manners, and want of discipline. But what will you say then
of Alexander the Great, that was trained up under the institution of
Aristotle himself, and killed Clytus, his favorite and schoolfellow,
with his _own hand_, under his _own roof_, and _over the freedom of a
cup of wine_? And what was his crime? He was loth to degenerate from a
Macedonian _liberty_ into a Persian _slavery_; that is to say, he could
not _flatter_.
Lysimachus, another of his friends, he exposed to a lion; and this
very Lysimachus, after he had escaped this danger, was never the more
merciful when he came to reign himself; for he cut off the ears and
nose of his friend Telesphorous; and when he had so disfigured him
that he had no longer the face of a man, he threw him into a dungeon,
and there kept him to be showed for a monster, as a strange sight.
The place was so low that he was fain to creep upon all fours, and
his sides were galled too with the straitness of it. In this misery
he lay half-famished in his own filth; so odious, so terrible, and
so loathsome a spectacle, that the horror of his condition had even
extinguished all pity for him. “Nothing was ever so unlike a mar as the
poor wretch that suffered this, saving the tyrant that acted it.”
Nor did this merciless hardness only exercise itself among foreigners,
but the fierceness of their outrages and punishments, as well as their
vices, brake in upon the Romans. C. Marius, that had his statue set up
everywhere, and was adored as a God, L. Sylla commanded his bones to be
broken, his eyes to be pulled out, his hands to be cut off; and, as if
every wound had been a several death, his body to be torn to pieces,
and Catiline was the executioner. A _cruelty_ that was only fit for
Marius to _suffer_, Sylla to _command_, and Catiline to _act_; but most
dishonorable and fatal to the commonwealth, to fall indifferently upon
the sword’s point both of citizens and of enemies.
It was a severe instance, that of Piso too. A soldier that had leave
to go abroad with his comrade, came back to the camp at his time,
but without his companion. Piso condemned him to die, as if he had
killed him, and appoints a centurion to see the execution. Just as the
headsman was ready to do his office, the other soldier appeared, to the
great joy of the whole field, and the centurion bade the executioner
hold his hand. Hereupon Piso, in a rage, mounts the _tribunal_, and
sentences all three to death: the one because he was _condemned_,
the _other_ because it was for _his sake_ that his fellow-soldier
was _condemned_, the _centurion_ for not obeying the _order_ of his
_superior_. An ingenious piece of inhumanity, to contrive how to make
three criminals, where effectively there were none.
There was a Persian king that caused the noses of a whole nation to
be cut off, and they were to thank him that he spared their heads.
And this, perhaps, would have been the fate of the Macrobii, (if
Providence had not hindered it,) for the freedom they used to Cambyses’
ambassadors, in not accepting the slavish terms that were offered
them. This put Cambyses into such a rage, that he presently listed
into his service every man that was able to bear arms; and, without
either provisions or guides, marched immediately through dry and barren
deserts, and where never any man had passed before him, to take his
revenge. Before he was a third part of the way, his provisions failed
him. His men, at first, made shift with the buds of trees, boiled
leather, and the like; but soon after there was not so much as a root
or a plant to be gotten, nor a living creature to be seen; and then by
lot every tenth man was to die for a nourishment to the rest, which was
still worse than the famine. But yet this passionate king went on so
far, until one part of his army was lost, and the other devoured, and
until he feared that he himself might come to be served with the same
sauce. So that at last he ordered a retreat, wanting no delicates all
this while for himself, while his soldiers were taking their chance who
should die miserably, or live worse. Here was an anger taken up against
a whole nation, that neither deserved any ill from him, nor was so much
as known to him.
CHAPTER VII.
THE ORDINARY GROUNDS AND OCCASIONS OF ANGER.
In this wandering state of life we meet with many occasions of trouble
and displeasure, both great and trivial; and not a day passes but, from
men or things, we have some cause or other for offense; as a man must
expect to be jostled, dashed, and crowded, in a populous city. One
man deceives our expectation; another delays it; and a third crosses
it; and if everything does not succeed to our wish, we presently fall
out either with the person, the business, the place, our fortune, or
ourselves. Some men value themselves upon their wit, and will never
forgive anyone that pretends to lessen it; others are inflamed by wine:
and some are distempered by sickness, weariness, watchings, love, care,
etc. Some are prone to it, by heat of constitution; but moist, dry, and
cold complexions are more liable to other affections; as suspicion,
despair, fear, jealousy, etc. But most of our quarrels are of our own
contriving. One while we suspect upon mistake; and another while we
make a great matter of trifles. To say the truth, most of those things
that exasperate us are rather subjects of disgust than of mischief:
there is a large difference betwixt opposing a man’s satisfaction
and not assisting it: betwixt _taking away_ and _not giving_; but we
reckon upon _denying_ and _deferring_ as the same thing; and interpret
another’s being _for himself_ as if he were _against us_. Nay, we do
many times entertain an ill opinion of well doing, and a good one of
the contrary: and we hate a man for doing that very thing which we
should hate him for on the other side, if he did not do it.
We take it ill to be opposed when there is a father perhaps, a brother,
or a friend, in the case against us; when we should rather love a
man for it; and only wish that he could be honestly of our party. We
approve of the fact, and detest the doer of it. It is a base thing to
hate the person whom we cannot but commend; but it is a great deal
worse yet if we hate him for the very thing that deserves commendation.
The things that we desire, if they be such as cannot be given to one
without being taken away from another, must needs set those people
together by the ears that desire the same thing. One man has a design
upon my mistress, another upon mine inheritance; and that which should
make friends makes enemies, our being all of a mind. The general cause
of anger is the sense or opinion of an _injury_; that is, the opinion
either of an injury simply done, or of an injury done, which we have
not deserved. Some are naturally given to anger, others are provoked
to it by occasion; the anger of women and children is commonly sharp,
but not lasting: old men are rather querulous and peevish. Hard labor,
diseases, anxiety of thought, and whatsoever hurts the body or the
mind, disposes a man to be froward, but we must not add fire to fire.
He that duly considers the subject-matter of all our controversies
and quarrels, will find them low and mean, not worth the thought of
a generous mind; but the greatest noise of all is about _money_. This
is it that sets fathers and children together by the ears, husbands
and wives; and makes way for sword and poison. This is it that tires
out courts of justice, enrages princes, and lays cities in the dust,
to seek for gold and silver in the ruins of them. This is it that
finds work for the judge to determine which side is least in the
wrong; and whose is the more plausible avarice, the plaintiff’s or the
defendant’s. And what is it that we contend for all this while, but
those baubles that make us cry when we should laugh? To see a rich
old cuff, that has nobody to leave his estate to, break his heart
for a handful of dirt; and a gouty usurer, that has no other use of
his fingers left him but to count withal; to see him, I say in the
extremity of his fit, wrangling for the odd money in his interest. If
all that is precious in Nature were gathered into one mass, it were
not worth the trouble of a sober mind. It were endless to run over all
those ridiculous passions that are moved about meats and drinks, and
the matter of our luxury; nay, about words, looks, actions, jealousies,
mistakes, which are all of them as contemptible fooleries as those very
baubles that children scratch and cry for. There is nothing great or
serious in all that which we keep such a clutter about; the madness
of it is, that we set too great a value upon trifles. One man flies
out upon a salute, a letter, a speech, a question, a gesture, a wink,
a look. An action moves one man; a word affects another; one man is
tender of his family; another of his person; one sets up for an orator,
another for a philosopher: this man will not bear pride, nor that man
opposition. He that plays the tyrant at home, is gentle as a lamb
abroad. Some take offense if a man ask a favor of them, and others, if
he does not. Every man has his weak side; let us learn which that is,
and take a care of it; for the same thing does not work upon all men
alike. We are moved like beasts at the idle appearances of things, and
the fiercer the creature, the more is it startled. The sight of a red
coat enrages a bull; a shadow provokes the asp; nay, so unreasonable
are some men, that they take moderate benefits for injuries, and
squabble about it with their nearest relations: “They have done this
and that for others,” they cry; “and they might have dealt better with
us if they had pleased.” Very good! and if it be less than we looked
for, it may be yet more than we deserve. Of all unquiet humors this
is the worst, that will never suffer any man to be happy, so long as
he sees a happier man than himself. I have known some men so weak as
to think themselves contemned if a horse did but play the jade with
_them_, that is yet obedient to _another rider_. A brutal folly to be
offended at a mute animal; for no injury can be done us without the
concurrence of reason. A beast may hurt us, as a sword or a stone, and
no otherwise. Nay, there are that will complain of “foul weather, a
raging sea, a biting winter,” as if it were expressly directed to them;
and this they charge upon Providence, whose operations are all of them
so far from being injurious, that they are beneficial to us.
How vain and idle are many of those things that make us stark mad! A
resty horse, the overturning of a glass, the falling of a key, the
dragging of a chair, a jealousy, a misconstruction. How shall that
man endure the extremities of hunger and thirst that flies out into a
rage for putting of a little too much water in his wine? What haste
is there to lay a servant by the heels, or break a leg or an arm
immediately for it, as if he were not to have the same power over him
an hour after, that he has at that instant? The answer of a servant, a
wife, a tenant, puts some people out of all patience; and yet they can
quarrel with the government, for not allowing them the same liberty in
public, which they themselves deny to their own families. If they say
nothing, it is contumacy: if they speak or laugh, it is insolence. As
if a man had his ears given him only for music; whereas we must suffer
all sorts of noises, good and bad, both of man and beast. How idle
is it to start at the tinkling of a bell, or the creaking of a door,
when, for all this delicacy, we must endure thunder! Neither are our
eyes less curious and fantastical than our ears. When we are abroad, we
can bear well enough with foul ways, nasty streets, noisome ditches;
but a spot upon a dish at home, or an unswept hearth, absolutely
distracts us. And what is the reason, but that we are patient in the
one place, and fantastically peevish in the other? Nothing makes us
more intemperate than luxury, that shrinks at every stroke, and starts
at every shadow. It is death to some to have another sit above them,
as if a body were ever the more or the less honest for the cushion.
But they are only weak creatures that think themselves wounded if they
be but touched. One of the Sybarites, that saw a fellow hard at work a
digging, desired him to give over, for it made him weary to see him:
and it was an ordinary complaint with him, that “he could take no
rest because the rose-leaves lay double under him.” When we are once
weakened with our pleasures, everything grows intolerable. And we are
angry as well with those things that cannot hurt us as with those that
do. We tear a book because it is blotted; and our clothes, because
they are not well made: things that neither deserve our anger nor feel
it: the tailor, perchance, did his best, or, however, had no intent to
displease us: if so, first, why should we be angry at all? Secondly,
why should we be angry with the thing for the man’s sake? Nay, our
anger extends even to dogs, horses, and other beasts.