Minor Dialogues, Together With the Dialogue on Clemency
blood by the parricide hand of his son, another to have his royal
throat cut by the hand of a slave, another to stretch out his limbs
on the cross: and hitherto I am speaking merely of individual cases.
What, if you were to pass from the consideration of those single
men against whom anger has broken out to view whole assemblies cut
down by the sword, the people butchered by the soldiery let loose
upon it, and whole nations condemned to death in one common ruin .
. . .[1] as though by {51} men who either freed themselves from our
charge or despised our authority? Why, wherefore is the people angry
with gladiators, and so unjust as to think itself wronged if they
do not die cheerfully? It thinks itself scorned, and by looks,
gestures, and excitement turns itself from a mere spectator into
an adversary. Everything of this sort is not anger, but the semblance
of anger, like that of boys who want to beat the ground when they
have fallen upon it, and who often do not even know why they are
angry, but are merely angry without any reason or having received
any injury, yet not without some semblance of injury received, or
without some wish to exact a penalty for it. Thus they are deceived
by the likeness of blows, and are appeased by the pretended tears
of those who deprecate their wrath, and thus an unreal grief is
healed by an unreal revenge.
III. “We often are angry,” says our adversary, “not with men who
have hurt us, but with men who are going to hurt us: so you may be
sure that anger is not born of injury.” It is true that we are angry
with those who are going to hurt us, but they do already hurt us
in intention, and one who is going to do an injury is already doing
it. “The weakest of men,” argues he, “are often angry with the most
powerful: so you may be sure that anger is not a desire to punish
their antagonist—for men do not desire to punish him when they
cannot hope to do so.” In the first place, I spoke of a desire to
inflict punishment, not a power to do so: now men desire even what
they cannot obtain. In the next place, no one is so low in station
as not to be able to hope to inflict punishment even upon the
greatest of men: we all are powerful for mischief. {52} Aristotle’s
definition differs little from mine: for he declares anger to be a
desire to repay suffering. It would be a long task to examine the
differences between his definition and mine: it may be urged against
both of them that wild beasts become angry without being excited
by injury, and without any idea of punishing others or requiting
them with pain: for, even though they do these things, these are
not what they aim at doing. We must admit, however, that neither
wild beasts nor any other creature except man is subject to anger:
for, whilst anger is the foe of reason, it nevertheless does not
arise in any place where reason cannot dwell. Wild beasts have
impulses, fury, cruelty, combativeness: they have not anger any
more than they have luxury: yet they indulge in some pleasures with
less self-control than human beings. Do not believe the poet who
says:
“The boar his wrath forgets, the stag forgets the hounds. The
bear forgets how ’midst the herd he leaped with frantic bounds.”[2]
When he speaks of beasts being angry he means that they are excited,
roused up: for indeed they know no more how to be angry than they
know how to pardon. Dumb creatures have not human feelings, but
have certain impulses which resemble them: for if it were not so,
if they could feel love and hate, they would likewise be capable
of friendship and enmity, of disagreement and agreement. Some traces
of these qualities exist even in them, though properly all of them,
whether good or bad, belong to the human breast alone. To no creature
besides man has been given wisdom, foresight, industry, and reflexion.
To animals not only human virtues but even human vices are forbidden:
their whole constitution, mental and bodily, is unlike that of human
beings: in them the royal[3] and {53} leading principle is drawn
from another source, as, for instance, they possess a voice, yet
not a clear one, but indistinct and incapable of forming words: a
tongue, but one which is fettered and not sufficiently nimble for
complex movements: so, too, they possess intellect, the greatest
attribute of all, but in a rough and inexact condition. It is,
consequently, able to grasp those visions and semblances which rouse
it to action, but only in a cloudy and indistinct fashion. It follows
from this that their impulses and outbreaks are violent, and that
they do not feel fear, anxieties, grief, or anger, but some semblances
of these feelings: wherefore they quickly drop them and adopt the
converse of them: they graze after showing the most vehement rage
and terror, and after frantic bellowing and plunging they straightway
sink into quiet sleep.
IV. What anger is has been sufficiently explained. The difference
between it and irascibility is evident: it is the same as that
between a drunken man and a drunkard; between a frightened man and
a coward. It is possible for an angry man not to be irascible; an
irascible man may sometimes not be angry. I shall omit the other
varieties of anger, which the Greeks distinguish by various names,
because we have no distinctive words for them in our language,
although we call men bitter, and harsh, and also peevish, frantic,
clamorous, surly, and fierce: all of which are different forms of
irascibility. Among these you may class sulkiness, a refined form
of irascibility; for there are some sorts of anger which go no
further than noise, while some are as lasting as they are common:
some are fierce in deed, but inclined to be sparing of words: some
expend themselves in bitter words and curses: some do not go beyond
complaining and turning one’s back: some are great, deep-seated,
and brood within a man: there are a thousand other forms of a
multiform evil.
V. We have now finished our enquiry as to what anger {54} is, whether
it exists in any other creature besides man, what the difference
is between it and irascibility, and how many forms it possesses.
Let us now enquire whether anger be in accordance with nature, and
whether it be useful and worth entertaining in some measure.
Whether it be according to nature will become evident if we consider
man’s nature, than which what is more gentle while it is in its
proper condition? Yet what is more cruel than anger? What is more
affectionate to others than man? Yet what is more savage against
them than anger? Mankind is born for mutual assistance, anger for
mutual ruin: the former loves society, the latter estrangement. The
one loves to do good, the other to do harm; the one to help even
strangers, the other to attack even its dearest friends. The one
is ready even to sacrifice itself for the good of others, the other
to plunge into peril provided it drags others with it. Who, then,
can be more ignorant of nature than he who classes this cruel and
hurtful vice as belonging to her best and most polished work? Anger,
as we have said, is eager to punish; and that such a desire should
exist in man’s peaceful breast is least of all according to his
nature; for human life is founded on benefits and harmony, and is
bound together into an alliance for the common help of all, not by
terror, but by love towards one another.
VI. “What, then? Is not correction sometimes necessary?” Of course
it is; but with discretion, not with anger; for it does not injure,
but heals under the guise of injury. We char crooked spearshafts
to straighten them, and force them by driving in wedges, not in
order to break them, but to take the bends out of them; and, in
like manner, by applying pain to the body or mind we correct
dispositions which have been rendered crooked by vice. So the
physician at first, when dealing with slight disorders, tries not
to make much change in his patient’s daily habits, to regulate {55}
his food, drink, and exercise, and to improve his health merely by
altering the order in which he takes them. The next step is to see
whether an alteration in their amount will be of service. If neither
alteration of the order or of the amount is of use, he cuts off
some and reduces others. If even this does not answer, he forbids
food, and disburdens the body by fasting. If milder remedies have
proved useless he opens a vein; if the extremities are injuring the
body and infecting it with disease he lays his hands upon the limbs;
yet none of his treatment is considered harsh if its result is to
give health. Similarly, it is the duty of the chief administrator
of the laws, or the ruler of a state, to correct ill-disposed men,
as long as he is able, with words, and even with gentle ones, that
he may persuade them to do what they ought, inspire them with a
love of honour and justice, and cause them to hate vice and set
store upon virtue. He must then pass on to severer language, still
confining himself to advising and reprimanding; last of all he must
betake himself to punishments, yet still making them slight and
temporary. He ought to assign extreme punishments only to extreme
crimes, that no one may die unless it be even to the criminal’s own
advantage that he should die. He will differ from the physician in
one point alone; for whereas physicians render it easy to die for
those to whom they cannot grant the boon of life, he will drive the
condemned out of life with ignominy and disgrace, not because he
takes pleasure in any man’s being punished, for the wise man is far
from such inhuman ferocity, but that they may be a warning to all
men, and that, since they would not be useful when alive, the state
may at any rate profit by their death. Man’s nature is not, therefore,
desirous of inflicting punishment; neither, therefore, is anger in
accordance with man’s nature, because that is desirous of inflicting
punishment. I will also adduce Plato’s argument—for what harm is
there in using {56} other men’s arguments, so far as they are on
our side? “A good man,” says he, “does not do any hurt: it is only
punishment which hurts. Punishment, therefore, does not accord with
a good man: wherefore anger does not do so either, because punishment
and anger accord one with another. If a good man takes no pleasure
in punishment, he will also take no pleasure in that state of mind
to which punishment gives pleasure: consequently anger is not natural
to man.”
VII. May it not be that, although anger be not natural, it may be
right to adopt it, because it often proves useful? It rouses the
spirit and excites it; and courage does nothing grand in war without
it, unless its flame be supplied from this source; this is the goad
which stirs up bold men and sends them to encounter perils. Some
therefore consider it to be best to control anger, not to banish
it utterly, but to cut off its extravagances, and force it to keep
within useful bounds, so as to retain that part of it without which
action will become languid and all strength and activity of mind
will die away.
In the first place, it is easier to banish dangerous passions than
to rule them; it is easier not to admit them than to keep them in
order when admitted; for when they have established themselves in
possession of the mind they are more powerful than the lawful ruler,
and will in no wise permit themselves to be weakened or abridged.
In the next place, Reason herself, who holds the reins, is only
strong while she remains apart from the passions; if she mixes and
befouls herself with them she becomes no longer able to restrain
those whom she might once have cleared out of her path; for the
mind, when once excited and shaken up, goes whither the passions
drive it. There are certain things whose beginnings lie in our own