Moral essays. With an English translation by J.W. Basore

ON ANGER, I. IX. 3-x. 3for I understand this to be unbridled and ungovernable.If it suffers no limitation, it is a baneful thingand is not to be counted as a helpful agent. Thuseitlier anger is not anger or it is useless. For theman who exacts punishment, not because he desirespunishment for its ow-n sake, but because it is rightti 1inflict it, ought not to be counted as an angry man.The ai£eful_soldier \n\\ be one who knows how to obey(uders ; the passions are as bad subordinates as .tliL'V are leaders.C un-equently, reasim_JSKQl_ne.Y.er- call to its-helpItlind and \-iolent impulses over which it vnW itselflia\-e no control, which it can never crush save by:-etting against them equally powerful and similarimpulses, as fear against anger, anger against sloth,arced against fear. May \'irtue be spared thecalamit}'' of having reason ever flee for help to \'ice !It is impossible for the mind to find here a surerepose ; shattered and storm-tossed it must ever beif it depends upon its worst qualities to save it, if itcannot be brave Avithout being angry, if it cannothe industrious without being greedy, if it cannot betpiiet without being afraid—such is the tyrannyunder which that man must live who surrenders tothe bondage of any passion. Is it not a shame to(1- crrade the \-irtues into dependence upon the vices ?_ain, reason ceases to have power if it has no powerart from passion, and so gets to be on the same^k vel with passion and like unto it. For what differenceis there, if passion without reason is a thing asunguided as reason without passion is ineffective ?Both are on the same level, if one cannot exist withoutthe other. Yet who would maintain that passioni^ on a level with reason ? " Passion," some one131